


Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

by BlitheBells



Series: Run [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Minor Violence, Multi, death mentions, very mild self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 112
Words: 127,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlitheBells/pseuds/BlitheBells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Bucky Barnes recovery story. Completed.<br/>First book in the three part 'Run' series. Sequels are 'Ready Set Breathe' and 'To Go Unseen'<br/>Rated for some violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Run

Director Fury found the Winter Soldier begging inside a barber shop. He was practically on his hands and knees, pleading with an outraged barber. They had clearly been going back and forth for some time.  
"This is crazy! You can't come in here with four bucks and expect to pay for a haircut!" The man was howling, red in the face. Bucky, with his clean, spiffy new haircut, desperately tried to bargain with him.  
"I'll sweep your floors!" He cried. "I'll work to pay it off!" The barber unfortunately wasn't having it. "Please sir, if you'd let me go back to my hotel room, I'll bring you the cash-"  
"I'm calling the police!" The barber finally cried and Bucky frantically scrambled to stop him, panicking. This was about when Fury, standing just inside the door, felt he ought to step in.  
"No need," Fury said casually, stepping between the enraged barber and his telephone, holding out to the man a credit card. "I'll cover my friend here." Bucky stared, slack-jawed, at Fury and seemed unsure whether to thank him or run from him. The barber grudgingly took Fury's money while Bucky stood behind them and tried not to shake with fear.  
"Funny running into you here, isn't it?" Fury said, taking his card back and gesturing Bucky to step closer. "Come on now, it's a lovely day for a walk." Hesitantly, Bucky obeyed and followed Fury out of the barber shop.  
Bucky's still-broken mind was nearly paralyzed with fear as he stood next to Fury on the sidewalk. He was confused and scared and he wanted nothing more than to run, run all the way back to his cheap motel room and run from there until he reached the edge of something and just jump. But then again, he had been feeling that way for a while.  
Instead of running, however, Bucky looked at Fury and spoke quietly.  
"You've come to take me, right," he said and although it was phrased as a question, it came out as a sentence. More of a fact than a variable. But much to Bucky's surprise, Fury smiled and shook his head.  
"I'm undercover too," he said. "In case you don't remember, I'm supposed to be dead." Bucky wanted to apologize, but the words caught in his throat and he closed his mouth. "No, no," Fury continued. "I'm not here to take you anywhere, Mr. Barnes. But I've had eyes on you and I wanted to talk. Now walk with me." Fury stepped forward and again, Bucky followed, still unable to be comforted. Fury walked quickly and in truth, the Winter Soldier did too, so he didn't have much trouble keeping up.  
"You seem to be holding up relatively well," Fury commented to Bucky and Bucky shrugged miserably. He did what he had to do, like always. "Guy in your position, I wouldn't expect him to have a hotel room and a job." Bucky shrugged again, staring with a fearful fervor at the ground. And its not exactly a job, he thought. He didn't really count the odd jobs he did around the streets for coins a 'job'. And the hotel room was less than five star. But Bucky supposed it was true, he was doing okay. He was alive and he was free and that was something.  
Bucky pictured again the running.  
"Ever get anyone to look at that shoulder?" Fury asked, nodding to his stiff right shoulder.  
"I, uh, I fixed it myself," he said and rolled his shoulder carefully. It was still a little sore.  
"Yeah, I know you did, and that's what bothers me," Fury said, but before Bucky could really explain himself, Fury continued. "I know, I know, you can't go to a hospital. But if it's feeling bad now, it's only going to get worse and you can't ignore a dislocated shoulder forever. I know some people who could look at it for you, no questions asked." A pause ensued while Bucky thought silently.  
"Why are you doing this, sir?" Bucky asked finally and looked over at Director Fury, his voice still barely above a mutter. He couldn't help but feel suspicious. This was too much to give to the man who had shot him nearly dead, Bucky knew and for that, he couldn't fathom why. "I don't deserve any of this." Fury didn't answer at first. He was quiet, looking at the pavement through dark sunglasses. Bucky shoved his metal hand in his pocket self-consciously. He took great care to keep it completely covered with gloves and long sleeves, but sometimes, even though he rationally knew no one could see it, he still felt exposed. He used his right hand to pull his windbreaker around his body tighter.  
"Once we've fixed everything around here and flushed out Hydra, SHIELD could use a man like you," Fury finally said and Bucky didn't know how to react. He wasn't even positive if he knew exactly what Fury was offering. He took time and care with his answer.  
"I'm, uh, flattered," Bucky said, although admittedly, he wasn’t sure if he really was. He’d have to think about that one. "But I really don't know what to say."  
“I’m not asking you to accept right now,” Fury replied. “All I want to do is give you my phone number.” Fury stopped abruptly now and Bucky came to a halt just behind him. He looked up and realized with a bit of a start that they had walked all the way back to his hotel. “I believe this is you,” Fury said. “Now, before I go.” From his pocket, Fury pulled out a black smartphone and pushed it towards Bucky.  
“This isn’t a phone number, this is a phone,” Bucky said, surprised.  
“I know what it is, Barnes,” Fury said. Bucky really wasn’t sure if he wanted to accept it, but Fury pushed the phone closer to him until, awkwardly, he took it. “Just promise me you’ll think about my offer. You may not be ready now, but I have a feeling that you’ll be glad we had this talk eventually.”  
Absolutely not, Bucky thought to himself with some vehemence, but outwardly, he only nodded his head and crammed the phone into his free pocket.  
“Thank you, sir,” he said.  
“And another thing, Barnes,” Fury added. “Believe it or not, there’s been some inflation since the last time you were in commission. Try to carry around more than just four dollars, okay?” When he looked back up from the pavement and the new metal smartphone to respond, Fury had disappeared into the crowd. It was really only to be expected and Bucky wasn’t altogether surprised. He reached up and pushed his hair back, mostly out of habit if anything, and ducked into the dingy hotel, away from the streets.  
Bucky had been here all of two weeks, give or take some. The days ran together sometimes and he wasn’t too focused on keeping track. He would be the first to admit that he was struggling badly.  
The smartphone was heavy in his pocket, and cold. It had a certain weird weight about it. Bucky found his room and tucked himself inside, quick to shut the door and avoid eye contact with anyone he had passed on the way there. He wondered briefly which of his neighbors constituted as one of Fury’s eyes, but he didn’t linger on the thought because the curiosity about the phone in his pocket was eating at him.  
It turned on with a click and a buzz in his right hand and the black screen flashed a few times. Bucky waited patiently for it to turn on and then scrolled carefully through each page. There wasn’t much there. It had a calculator and a clock and a few other extraneous apps. A feature that caught his eye, however, was Contacts. He opened the folder and discovered, with a sort of indescribable sadness, two names listed. The first was, of course, Nick Fury, but the second was Steve Rogers.  
Bucky shut the phone down and set it on the counter. He left the hotel in a jog and when he hit the streets, he ran.


	2. Call

Bucky refused to call Nick Fury for almost over a week. The metal smartphone sat on his hotel room counter, untouched, and he went about his business, pretending to be undisturbed. He didn’t know why Steve Rogers’ name was in that phone, but he knew he wanted nothing to do with him.  
As for old and lost memories, Bucky had made next to no progress recovering anything. He had been too busy, he had more dire and immediate concerns and, gosh, it hurt to think about. It was painful. He knew he ought to remember this man and he ought to love him, but the image of his face in Bucky’s mind brought nothing but frustration and dead-end grief. So, not for the first time and not for the last, Bucky made a conscious effort to put Captain America out of his thoughts.  
But Fury’s offer was one Bucky couldn’t dismiss as easily. To think Fury was interested in putting Bucky back into assassin work made his stomach turn. He didn’t know much about who he was or who he wanted to be, that was true, but if he knew one thing it was that he wanted to put the Winter Soldier behind him and never ever look back. Rationally, he told himself, working for Fury might be different. No metal cells without windows, no work he didn’t want to do or people to treat him like a weapon instead of a human being. But he still couldn’t bring himself to say yes.  
His shoulder was killing him, though, and that was what brought him to the brink one morning, clutching it with his metal hand and gritting his teeth to put off the pain. It had been swollen before, and now it was getting stiffer and more painful. Bucky shrunk away from using it and flinched when it was touched. It hurt what pride he had left, pride and his deep desire to run away and be left to sort himself out alone, but he knew he needed to ask for help, beg for it even, if only to save his own life. He could not live like that.  
So it was utter desperation that brought James Buchanan Barnes to put aside his fears and call Nick Fury. He hated it, he hated to ask for help, he hated being powerless, he hated to feel as though by accepting Fury's help, he became indebted to him. James Buchanan Barnes would not be a tool again, not ever. But he needed the help.  
"Mr. Barnes," said Fury's voice from the smartphone. "You've considered our talk then."  
"Yes sir," Bucky said, holding the phone to his face with his left shoulder and cradling his right. "I have to say no."  
"That's a shame," Fury said.  
"But, um, you offered, uh, about my shoulder," Bucky gritted his teeth and squeezed his shoulder, gasping sharply when the sting attacked him. He'd pinched the wrong place and his whole arm felt on fire. Humiliated, he tried to talk over his gasp, trying to wet his mouth. He could feel sweat break out on his forehead. "I don't want to owe you anything, Fury," Bucky said through clenched teeth. "But I-I-". He stopped abruptly. He didn't want to admit that he wouldn't be able to stand it much longer. He couldn't sound desperate. Fortunately, Fury seemed to understand.  
"I'm sending someone to pick you up now," he said and Bucky allowed himself a sigh of relief. "But I am undercover Barnes, and I can't be there to oversee you, so I'm sending Rogers to assist you. He’s one of the only SHIELD members I trust right now."  
If it was possible for Bucky to feel sicker than he already did, he felt that now. His stomach turned and his voice caught.  
"Oh please no, please no," he begged, forgetting in seconds his determination to sound in control. "Please, anyone, not him."  
"I'm sorry, Barnes," Fury said to Bucky's horror. "You really have no choice, he is your only option." Bucky was panicking. "You won't owe us anything," Fury was continuing. "All you have to do is stand this man for a few hours at best. He's in charge in my stead and he’s eager to help you." Bucky, scared and panicked, scooped the phone out of the crook of his neck and used his left arm to hurl it at the wall. It shattered and the wall busted into a large dent. Someone on the other side cried out in surprise, but Bucky was already out of the room. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew he had to avoid Steve Rogers at all costs. He ignored the pain and the sweat dripping into his eyes and tried to make a break for it. His metal arm wasn't covered and he was only in a dirty wifebeater and three day old jeans, but he was too panicked to care. He burst out of the hallway and skidded, barefooted, into the lobby.  
Bucky slammed full-force into the wall on his screaming right side as he slid, out of control. He screamed loudly in pain, only vaguely aware of the horrified hotel patrons in his desperation to avoid Steve Rogers. Pain blinded him, he saw light flashes. The pain was so white-hot that he felt he could taste it’s tang in his mouth, but it also might have been blood where he had bit his tongue. Next to the wall, Bucky dropped to his knees, his sight blurring together as the pain, pounding, grasped his mind.  
"Buck!" Bucky looked up to see that familiar face, blonde hair, broad shoulders, features contorted in fear, and his stomach flipped. He wanted to cry out and move himself away from Steve, but he choked on the pain. His stomach protested and he blacked out, coming back seconds later to find himself vomiting, delirious with pain, before his vision sizzled out for good, everything blurring, and he slumped to the floor in a dead faint.


	3. ---

The Winter Soldier was not a happy man and there were a lot of reasons why. One reason was that he had not thought of himself as a human being in a very, very long time. He was, in fact, a machine, a tool, and he never forgot it. He was used, not cherished, and weaponized instead of loved. He wasn’t spoken to or treated as though he had feelings or opinions or dreams, so eventually, those things drained out of him. He was a sort of empty vessel for others to pour their wishes into and he’d wield a gun and make them happen. It was not very fulfilling. It was, alternatively, rather damaging. His life was inconsequential, even to himself, and because he turned out to actually be a person, (much to his surprise when he discovered the fact) he realized that shoving his own feelings out of the way to make room for others had rather hurt him quite a lot and he didn’t really like it.


	4. Steve

Bucky woke slowly, having slept heavier and deeper than he had in some weeks. He had not dreamt, at least not to memory, but his memory, he knew, was not one to be trusted. Regardless, he felt well-rested and as he stirred, he came to the realization that his right shoulder was not in any sort of pain at all. He sat up slowly, examining his shoulder, which was wrapped in gauze that he didn’t remember using. In fact, where even was he?  
“Hey Bucky,” said a voice that startled him. He turned and his mind hesitantly assigned a name to the voice. Steve. Steve Rogers. Bucky jumped again as the significance hit him. He wanted to be away! “I’m glad you’re awake.” Steve said. He was standing in the doorway. He looked like he had been standing there for some time. There was darkness under his eyes and his shoulders slumped. Bucky stared at Steve, dead-eyed, refusing to respond. He wasn’t ready to face Steve Rogers yet! “Anyway, you were out all night,” Steve said after a long, silent pause during which Bucky had made no reply. He nodded to Bucky’s shoulder. “The doctor left. He said your shoulder will be back to normal soon. How do you feel?”  
“I’m fine,” Bucky said.  
“Oh,” Steve said. He shifted a little, as though he had not imagined the encounter going this way. “That’s good.”  
“I’m leaving,” Bucky said, shifting the sheets away from himself and getting ready to stand. Forget tact, prudence be cursed, he wanted to get away. He could see himself running and jumping again. His emotions welled under a dam in his heart, too conflicting and powerful to make sense of. Steve stared for a minute, dumbfounded. He took a step towards Bucky.  
“Leave? But you just got here!” Steve protested.  
“What is here?” Bucky demanded, cutting off anything else Steve might have wanted to say.  
“I, well, this is my apartment,” Steve admitted. Bucky balked. He scrambled to throw the blankets off of himself and swung his legs down over the side of the bed. He spotted his shirt, dirty and stained, slung across a chair by the bed, and quickly pulled it on. A fairly large part of him was ashamed of his left arm. He didn’t want Steve to be looking at it. He especially didn’t want Steve to be looking at the way the metal reached out into his chest and the scars where it fused into his body. He wished for more covering clothing.  
“Look,” he said hastily. “Thanks for the hospitality, Captain, but I have to go.” Steve’s face hardened and he blocked the door.  
“Why?” Steve asked. “Please, Buck, work with me here.” Bucky glared at the floor, Steve’s floor, and refused to look him in the eye.  
“Let me through,” he said quietly and after some consideration, Steve slowly stepped aside.  
“What is this about?” Steve cried, following Bucky as he bee-lined for the front door just in sight. The dam which Bucky had previously been mostly unaware of, splintered ever so slightly and Bucky felt his breathing quicken. He couldn’t sort out so many feelings, not here, not now. “I’m your friend, I can help you work through this! Please let me help you!” Steve pleaded, so close behind him Bucky could almost feel his breath on the back of his neck. Bucky grasped the door handle and swung the door open. He had to get out, now now now. Now! Please Steve, Bucky begged in his mind. Please let me go. There’s too much pain, there’s too much, I can’t handle everything right now! He wanted to scream, he wanted to yell the words at Steve, and he nearly did, he was so close, until Steve reached forward and grabbed Bucky’s metal left shoulder, just above the star he hadn’t even attempted to scrub off yet. Bucky froze and everything hit him all at once. His whole body tensed and Steve seemed to notice.  
In Bucky’s mind at this moment, a picture arose. It was fuzzy and unclear and there were emotions that accompanied it. He saw the streets of Brooklyn, dirty and cobbled, and a bruised smile from a little blonde boy. He saw another hand on another shoulder in another time.  
“Captain,” Bucky said darkly, his voice shaking and the pain in his heart overwhelming him. He chose his words carefully. He hated himself deeply. “If you value your life, you’ll let me go and you will never touch me again.” Stunned and hurt, Steve lifted his hand away and Bucky took the final step outside of Steve’s apartment and slammed the door hard. He heard the wood splinter just a little.  
Steve Rogers was a good man. That was it, he was simply, utterly, down to his heart good. And he didn’t deserve to feel pain over someone as broken as James Buchanan Barnes.  
Bucky berated himself until he could no longer stand to think about it. He had been the Winter Soldier there again. In a time when he thought he could put it behind him, he realized it was never truly gone in the first place. He hadn’t felt so inhuman in weeks.  
A deep part of him was grateful for the unfeeling coldness of the Winter Soldier. That part of him was there to take off and on when his emotions became too much, when his brokenness overwhelmed him. It was a sort of defense, there was a level of protection, and he didn’t like it, but it was there and it stopped the dam from breaking.


	5. Crunch

Within the span of a week or so, Bucky’s right shoulder felt perfectly fine. There was no more pain, so he discarded the gauze and went again about his routine. Because of the disturbance in the last hotel, he was, not for the first time and not for the last time, forcibly evicted and he began to look for new places to stay. Luckily, the area of the city in which he had been frequenting for the past month or so was littered in disgustingly cheap motels, the kind that didn’t ask questions when you came in past midnight, sweaty and shaking and hoarse, which he found he frequently did. (The late-night city walks he took in order to avoid the nightmares often left him shaken due to late-night thinking, such thinking which we all know can be harmful at best.) Renting another room wasn’t difficult. He found one, a dingy place like all the rest out by a large, loud overpass. His room was on the second floor instead of the third, which he considered significant because the third floor window would do more damage to leap out of than the second floor and he wasn’t sure if he resented that or not.  
But the important part is that one day, as Bucky happened to be walking past, the overpass fell out.  
He didn’t exactly see it happen, but he heard screaming and loud cracking and by the time he turned around, all there was was smoke. On instinct, on a whim, and with a death wish, Bucky ran into the smoke.  
There was screaming everywhere, and coughing. Bucky couldn’t see, but he followed the sounds of the nearest cries. He found people, so many people he didn’t count. He pushed them all in the direction of safety. He lifted broken pieces of overpass concrete off of fallen citizens, dragged out bodies, carried out wounded. He didn’t know why he was doing it, but he did it, and almost mechanically, too. He didn’t accept their tearful thanks.  
Bucky next found a man lying on the pavement, trapped underneath a car, screaming. Bucky coughed, almost, almost wished for his mask and goggles back, and knelt down next to the man.  
He didn’t say anything, but he fit his fingers under the hot metal of the crashed car and hoisted, lifting with all his strength in both arms. With just enough space, the man scooted free and stumbled off, tears streaming from dirt-caked eyes. Bucky was left with the car. He struggled, tried to back off, but something in the dust from behind him bumped his back and he tripped. First, his face hit the pavement and slid. He felt skin peel off. Then his palms. He saw his glove shred and sparks leap off his metal fingers and blood spring from his flesh ones. Then the car fell. With a crunch, Bucky watched nearly his entire left arm disappear underneath piles of smoking metal. He screamed. He struggled under the car, pulling at his arm, which unsurprisingly, no longer obeyed his command. With one final, adrenaline-fueled kick, Bucky managed to push the car off of himself and push himself away. He grabbed his left arm and cradled it to his body. He’d never not had an arm before now, not really. For the first time since blacking out in a snowy trench 70 years ago, which was an experience that only just made his list of memories, Bucky didn’t have use of all his limbs. He panicked.   
Out of the dirt, Bucky scrambled, shaken and distressed. There were more people in there, but there was nothing he could do, not now. He walked back to his hotel room in shock, cradling his arm, trembling, at a loss. Inside his room, he stripped off his clothes and tried to look at his arm. It was crushed and smoking and it wouldn’t respond to him. With his right hand, he felt along his shoulder until he found the small lever in the back, miniscule really, and pulled it up. The entire arm loosened and he watched in the bathroom mirror as it slipped right off his body. He caught it and set it down on the counter. It barely resembled his arm. The plates were mangled beyond recognition and shards of metal jutted out at various angles, and whether they were his or from the wreckage, he couldn’t tell.  
“I don’t have an arm anymore,” he muttered to himself. He didn’t know how he knew about the lever. He’d never needed to take off his arm before. In the mirror, he looked wrong. The metal portion that fit deep over his chest and shoulder remained, assumably a pretty permanent addition. But there was an empty socket there now, and barely much more of a shoulder. Distressed and exhausted and numb, Bucky left the bathroom and dropped onto his bed, falling into fitful, confused sleep because quite frankly, he didn’t know what else to do.  
Later, Steve paced his apartment anxiously, holding his phone to his face.  
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” he was saying.  
“You’re right it’s a lot to ask,” Tony replied. “I don’t even know this guy. And the last time I checked, he didn’t even know you.”  
“Tony, please,” Steve begged. “He’s in a really tight spot and you’re the only person I know who could help.” Tony was silent. Steve began to feel his stomach sink. “Please. For me, at least.” Again, no answer. “I’ll pay you.”  
“I don’t want your money, Cap,” Tony said.  
“Then what do you want?” Steve cried.  
“I can tell you what I don’t want,” Tony said spitefully.  
“You’re making this difficult,” Steve said, frustrated.  
“Ha!” Tony replied.  
“It’ll be fun. Right?” Steve tried a different angle. “You like that sort of thing. It’s technology, it’s robotics. Don’t tell me you weren’t at least itching to see how it worked.”  
“If I agree, will you stop begging me,” Tony said.  
“I’m not begging,” Steve said.  
“Alright, I’ll do it,” Tony said. “But the next time your homicidal-turned-heroic little buddy gets himself in a ‘tight spot’, you’re gonna have to find another guy.” Steve let go of a breath of relief.  
“Thanks Tony,” He said. “This means a lot to me.”  
“Yeah, well, you owe me big time,” Tony said.  
The next day, a letter arrived at the hotel for Bucky. He opened it one-handed, which was actually a lot more difficult than it sounded and it required him using his teeth as well. But when he finally managed to open the envelope, he recognized Stark letterhead and with a sinking, confused feeling, began to read the scribbled note.  
James Barnes,  
I’m coming to pick up you and your broken arm tomorrow at noon. I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart, so if you try to point a gun at me or something, you can kiss four limbs goodbye. I’ll probably have it fixed in a few days and then you can go home.  
Tony Stark


	6. Stark

Steve called that night.  
“Hello?” Bucky said.  
“Hey, Bucky, it’s me, it’s Steve,” Steve said. Bucky had the urge to hang up immediately, but he felt a little bad and he thought maybe this way, he could figure out exactly what was happening the next day at noon.  
“Yes?” Bucky replied.  
“Did you get Tony’s message? He’s going to help fix your arm,” Steve said. “He has guest rooms all set up at Stark Tower.”  
“Where is that?” Bucky asked.  
“It’s in New York,” Steve replied. “I just wanted to give you more of a heads-up. I’m gonna come and be there with you, okay?” Bucky frowned.  
“I don’t want this,” he said.  
“Don’t want what?” Steve asked and Bucky hung up.  
Bucky had heard about Tony Stark, if only through snippets of conversation he caught from Hydra members placed near him. He didn’t like to think about Hydra because it brought a darkness into his mind, but right now, sitting on his bed, Stark’s letter in hand, he knew he had to strain himself and try to remember more.  
To be honest, the Winter Soldier didn’t hear a lot from his cell. He was often alone, save the guards he knew were consistently on the other side of the metal doors. He didn’t know why they were there, because even he couldn’t remember his last escape attempt, but maybe there was another reason. Regardless, they were there, and he would sometimes hear them.  
Words rose to his mind from places unknown when he drew forth those experiences of sitting alone and listening to gaurds’ chatter. Stark. Ironman. Avengers. Technology? A sharp pain struck Bucky on his left side suddenly and his thoughts careened off track as he sucked in a breath. His whole left arm was burning. Confused and in pain, his metal arm wasn’t supposed to feel!, Bucky lept up and grabbed his arm--and grabbed at air.  
“Oh!” Bucky said, shocked that he had forgotten, surprised to be feeling pain. The pain was still there, but Bucky was looking at his side, of course he didn’t have an arm, there was nothing there!  
Bucky imagined he could still make use of his left arm. It felt like he could sometimes, and he would go to do something with it and would find himself just a little stupidly surprised when nothing happened. Because he didn’t have an arm. Bucky gritted his teeth, embarrassed at himself and frustrated that there was nothing he could do to assuage the pain he felt. And he had been interrupted right when he had started to remember things, too. Bucky curled his right hand into a fist and drove it into his bended knee in frustration. Who knows what else he had been interrupted in remembering?  
Bucky didn’t want to try again. He was afraid searching his mind might trigger pain, so he decided to only try to remember things in small doses, with large breaks, just to be safe. That dose, he thought reluctantly, was good for today.  
A second thought he did have, though, was that maybe getting rid of his left arm wasn’t such a bad thing. People lived without limbs all the time. And that arm, as helpful as it was, was Hydra’s. It was the Winter Soldier’s. Bucky had shoved down his dislike for it because he felt like he needed it, but now that it wasn’t attached to him, he wasn’t 100% sure he wanted it back. He didn’t like the detestable star that felt like some sort of brand, he didn’t like the scary way it made him look, he didn’t like the fact that he had killed people with it under Hydra’s command. It wasn’t a prosthetic made for him with love. It wasn’t that Hydra had wanted him to be comfortable, it was that they wanted him to be useful and a broken assassin wasn’t much use to them. Maybe it’s fitting to lose the arm then, Bucky thought. Broken outside, broken inside. I match.  
Bucky decided that when Stark’s minions arrived to retrieve him the next day at noon, he would tell them to take it and not bring it back. He could get along without it, like he was getting along without Hydra, like he was getting along without the Winter Soldier. It was a part of him that he wanted gone manifested as a real, physical part of him and should he be able to leave it behind.  
So the next day, that is exactly what he told Tony Stark when he came, standing in his doorway and holding a large briefcase.  
“Nice hotel you’ve got here. The stains in the carpets are really classy,” Stark said. Bucky wasn’t shaken. He stood at the doorway, holding it open with his right arm, his left arm’s sleeves held up with clips and safety pins.  
“If you’re not here out of the goodness of your heart, why are you here?” Bucky asked. He didn’t realize it was rude not to invite Tony inside. Tony realized it was rude and he shifted, arms folded.  
“You really have to ask?” He said. “Steve wouldn’t let it go.”  
“I don’t want Steve’s pity,” Bucky said.  
“Oops, too late,” Tony replied with a deadpan expression and moved forward, crowding Bucky out of the way and stepping into his hotel room. Bucky gritted his teeth.  
“How does Steve even know?” Bucky asked.  
“It’s hard not to know,” Tony said, kicking Bucky’s thrown sheets and dirty clothes out of the way as he moved towards the armour. “You’re all over the news after that overpass stunt. People noticed you walking away with a broken arm. I assume you’ve kept it in these drawers, right?” Bucky did, but he didn’t tell him that. He hadn’t wanted to be all over the news. What were the papers even saying?? He resolved to buy one as soon as Stark left.  
Bucky watched Tony hunt through each drawer until he found the mangled metal in the very last one.  
“Wow, you really destroyed this,” he said. Bucky shrugged his one shoulder, but Tony didn’t see. He set his briefcase on the ground and opened it up, fitting the metal prosthetic into the case inside and closing it back up.  
“Thank you,” Bucky said, because he felt he ought to say it. “But I actually don’t want it and I don’t want to go with you. If you want it, you can have it, study it, whatever. But I don’t want it reattached to me and I’m not going anywhere.” Tony stared, briefcase in hand.  
“You don’t want your arm,” Tony repeated, as though the thought was so strange as though to stun him. Bucky shifted a little and then shook his head.  
“It’s the Winter Soldier’s, it’s not mine,” he said finally. Stark stared, looking him up and down, as though attempting to decode him.  
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was told I was at the Winter Soldiers’ hotel room. Who do you think you are?” Tony asked, snark heavy in his voice.  
“Can we just agree that I don’t want it and leave it at that?” Bucky demanded.  
“What about it don’t you like?” Tony asked. “I could fix it, you know, that’s what I’m doing here.”  
“I just don’t like it!” Bucky cried, throwing up his one arm. “Why do you care?”  
“Because if you don’t have an arm, Steve won’t shut up!” Tony replied. Bucky took a deep breath. He couldn’t get away from Steve.  
“Tell Steve I don’t want his help,” Bucky said. Was Steve seriously so blind as to believe that Bucky wanted his help, or needed it? He was more than happy to go about his business himself and not cause Steve Rogers any more reason for complaint. “Tell Steve to leave me alone.”  
“Tell him yourself,” Tony said and swung past Bucky again, out into the hallway. He turned to face Bucky again. “Are you packed?” Bucky frowned and looked down at the clothes he was wearing.  
“Enough,” he said.   
“Then come on,” Tony said.  
“I don’t want it,” Bucky tried again, but Tony Stark was already walking away.  
“Don’t care,” he said as he walked, not looking back. Angry and feeling as though he couldn’t just leave the issue there, Bucky followed him to the counter and watched in dead-end frustration as Tony checked him out of his room.  
“I’ve got a plane waiting for us,” Tony said. “We’ll take the car to the airport.” Bucky glared.  
“Fine,” he growled. Stark was not an easy man to work with, but at least all he felt towards him was anger, unlike Steve Rogers. Anger was significantly easier.


	7. ---

The Winter Soldier didn’t have dreams in his cell. He slept without images. However, he did have dreams in his hotel room months later and he wanted to avoid them. It was not uncommon for him to walk about late at night and contemplate himself. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the nightmares he could have had in the sleep he didn’t get, or the late-night hate thoughts he heard in his mind as he paced around DC in the dark. The thoughts one has late at night are worse than thoughts one might have during the day, because in the night, terrors and secrets are not afraid to come out and torment you to their fullest. The Winter Soldier had a lot of terrors and secrets lined up to torment him in the dark and he often returned to his hotel room in the morning trembling and dead-eyed.


	8. Tower

The car ride to the airport was silent. The silver briefcase with Bucky’s arm in it sat between them and Bucky shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, looking at it. After a while, he looked away.  
“You aren’t going to fight me about putting your arm back on,” Tony commented and Bucky only glanced over at him from where he had been staring out the window and glared with poison in his eyes.  
Tony pulled into the airport and led Bucky to the plane. Bucky didn’t want to take the plane. He didn’t want to leave DC or his hotel room and he didn’t want to go to Stark Tower with this man he was still somewhat suspicious of, but Tony refused to take no for an answer. He ushered Bucky onto the plane and gave his pilot the okay.  
“Cheer up,” Tony said, settling into his seat by the window and glancing across the spacious plane where Bucky had taken a seat as far away from him as possible. “It’ll be thirty, forty minutes tops.”  
One nearly silent plane ride later and Bucky and Tony arrived at Stark Tower. The tower was huge and it drew attention to itself. Bucky looked away from it. He didn’t like it. Tony strode up into the building, Bucky trailing behind, his one hand in his pocket. He kept a wary eye out for Steve.  
“I’ve got Bruce over, if you don’t mind,” Tony commented over his shoulder to Bucky, briefcase in hand, as he led him onto an elevator. “He was curious about your arm, too.”  
“Who’s Bruce?” Bucky asked.  
“A friend,” Tony replied. “Avenger.” Tony looked over at him, standing together on the elevator and used his hands to demonstrate. “Big, green sometimes. Got a bit of a temper. Ring a bell?” Bucky shook his head. “Huh. Well, I guess you were a soldier-cicle as well, you’re a bit behind, right?”  
“I was a what,” Bucky said, caught off-guard by the awkward phrase, but Tony didn’t explain. They were already at the top of the tower and the elevator doors opened.  
“Bruce! Steve! I’m back with soldier-cicle number two,” Tony said loudly, striding into the lobby. Bucky followed him, taking in the large room quickly, his shoulders hunched. He was suddenly overly aware of his missing arm and felt embarrassed. He saw Steve across the room standing slowly from where he had been sitting on the couch and their eyes met. Bucky looked away quickly. He didn’t want to linger on Steve, who looked like his heart had been broken all over again just to see Bucky walk into the room.  
“He doesn’t want to be here,” Tony explained patronizingly to the man beside Steve, presumably Bruce. “He’s a little surly.”  
Everyone looked at Bucky as though they expected him to make some sort of comment about his so-called surliness, but Bucky only looked away and remained silent. He didn’t have anything to say.  
“It’s not so bad,” Bruce said in a quiet voice, a smile on his mouth, as though he meant to cheer Bucky up. “Tony is only annoying seventy percent of the time.” Bucky saw Steve crack a grin out of the corner of his eye.  
“Excuse me?” Tony retorted. “I’m supposed to be the funny one!”   
They really did seem like nice guys, from what Bucky could tell. He’d certainly known worse, that was for sure. And Bucky felt the urge to smile a little, to say something, to joke with them, but he found he’d completely forgotten how to do that. Instead, he ground his teeth and swallowed, staring into the ground, feeling not for the first time another part of himself that he’d lost.  
While Bucky had been thinking, Steve had approached him and spoke now. Bucky looked up.  
“Do you have any luggage?” Steve was asking. “I’ll help you with your room, if you want. Tony has a bunch of guest rooms around here.”  
“I didn’t bring anything,” Bucky said. What he really meant was that he didn’t have anything, but he didn’t want to sound like he was complaining. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of his lack of things. He didn’t want Steve’s pity.  
Steve was still surprised.  
“Nothing?” He said incredulously. “No extra clothes or…” He trailed off and Bucky didn’t respond. He didn’t shake his head. The question hanging in the air answered itself. Steve took a breath in through his nose. “Alright,” he said, attempting to recover. “Okay, well, we can get you something later.”  
“I just need a laundromat,” Bucky said. He wasn’t keen on a shopping date.  
“Well, you can have one of those, too,” Steve said stubbornly. Bucky frowned. He looked to Tony.  
"How long do I have to be here," he asked. Tony shrugged.  
“Bruce and I’ll look at your arm and take a guess. Hopefully not long,” Tony said. Bucky wasn’t sure if he was supposed to feel offended or not, but either way, he didn’t mind the dig. The Winter Soldier wasn’t exactly fun to be around.  
"Here, come on," Steve was saying, a bit gently, a little hesitantly, and Bucky looked over at him again. “Let me show you where you’re staying at?”  
Something in Bucky wanted to run.


	9. Attack

It had been a few days day since Stark had taken his arm and Bucky was trying valiantly to live without it. But it had definitely made life harder. His right arm was weary already, although he rested it often. He still didn’t want it back, though. It was Hydra’s and he didn’t need it.  
In the tower, Bucky’s room was nicer than any room he could remember. It had a big window and a large bed and a very spacious living area. Bucky liked it there and he liked sitting on the bed and staring at the sky out of the window. He didn’t spend time with the others in the tower often and when he did, he kept his head down and spoke to no one. He spent most of his time outside of the tower, walking up and down the streets and avoiding Steve. He knew this frustrated Steve, but Bucky still preferred it that way. It made things easier.  
Bucky bought a newspaper on the street one day and found the pictures and articles about himself that Tony had mentioned. There had been many pictures taken of him, and a lot of very clear images of his face. The article stated that he had saved nearly all the people from the wreckage and now couldn’t be found. The last image showed him walking away, a shell-shocked and stunned expression on his face, holding his dysfunctional arm.  
He threw the paper away after that. He didn’t really like the photos, or the words of people praising him who didn’t really know him. It felt like he didn’t truly deserve those words and if the people had known what else he’d done and who he was, they would take back their praise and that was okay because Bucky hadn’t accepted it in the first place.  
As usual, Bucky spent most of his nights awake and walking. He got to know the block around Stark Tower well, and nearby parks and benches and rare quiet spots. He was out walking that night, his left sleeve pinned up awkwardly and his right hand on the back of his neck, eyes on the ground. He was thinking.  
A few blocks away from Stark Tower, in the dark, Bucky began to feel a little tired. His feet ached and he needed to sit down for a minute before he walked back to his room and pretended to have slept through the night. He recalled a small park closeby and made it there in record time.   
Bucky collapsed on a bench and leaned back, eyes closed, his exhaustion overcoming him. He folded one leg and used the heel of his hand to rub his aching foot. Bucky sat for another good minute, relieved to be sitting, until he heard something. A whizzing, just barely above a buzz, getting closer. In a second, his eyes were open and he ducked, rolling off the bench, catching himself with his right hand, tense and close to the ground. There was a thin dart in the park bench where he had been sitting. Bucky looked from where it had come and saw a flash of something shiny. A gun.  
Before he knew what he was doing, Bucky was up and running. He reached the hitman in the nearby alley in record time and before the offender had time to realize what was happening, Bucky was hauling him up by the collar with one hand. He stood the man up and hit him as hard as he could. The gun slipped from his fingers and Bucky grabbed it, whirled it around and struck the man’s temple with it, hard. The man gasped and stumbled back, at which time Bucky, working almost solely on instinct and muscle memory now, threw the gun down and grabbed him up by the collar again. The Winter Soldier moved fast, too fast to retaliate against. Bucky could almost feel the mask up against his mouth again and in instantaneous flashbacks, saw his metal left hand close around a lot of throats. With only his right hand, though, he was still as terrifying. The hitman still wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. Bucky dragged the man by the collar to the nearest brick wall and shoved him up against it, legs steady, body tense, pressing his face against the wall until the brick cut into him. The air of dark, deadly confidence filled Bucky up again. Arm or not, he was strong and he was ruthless and this time, he had no orders.  
“Who are you,” The Winter Soldier demanded, his voice low and undeniably threatening. The hitman laughed.  
“Who do you think?” He said. The Winter Soldier pushed him against the wall harder, then decided against it. He pulled back his fist and hit him the jaw repeatedly. The man’s face bled and Bucky’s hand felt sore.  
“Answer my question,” he said again.  
“Hail Hydra,” the hitman said through a quickly swelling jaw. The Winter Soldier pushed the man’s back against the wall now and kneed him in the gut and the groin.  
“Where is Hydra?” he yelled in the man’s face. “Who all is left?!” The man’s hysterical laughter choked in his throat and turned to wounded sobs. He refused to answer and Bucky thought maybe his jaw was snapped.  
“I bet you’ve got that suicide pill in your mouth,” the Winter Soldier said as he stepped back and the man fell forward, groaning. “I suggest you break it now.”


	10. Arm

Steve made several attempts throughout the week to connect with Bucky, most of which Bucky found rather embarrassing and pitiful. He put himself in positions to interact with him whenever Bucky was around. He tried to strike up conversation, he was kind and overly-gentle and did everything he could to try to make Bucky feel comfortable, but in reality, he usually ended up making Bucky feel awkward and somewhat helpless. So he avoided Steve as best as he could.  
And Bucky felt bad, really he did, but being with Steve only made him feel worse because he couldn’t find it in his broken self to love Steve like Steve loved Bucky.  
He just couldn’t be a good friend anymore. So he didn’t try.  
When Bucky’s arm was finished a week later, Tony sent a call to his room and told him to come up to the top floor. Bucky had decided during the week without it that he really did need that arm, especially if he was going to be hunted by Hydra. He may not like it, but that was it and if truth be told, he expected now to wear that arm until he died. So Bucky took the elevator up to the top floor and prepared himself to see the metal and the star. He tried not to be too excited to have the ability to flex his fingers again.  
Bucky noticed his arm right away, once the elevator doors parted. It was directly across from him, lying on the table and it looked strange and unnatural while unattached to a body. But then again, it looked stranger and more unnatural actually attached to him, to he figured it must just be the nature of having a metal prosthetic. It was otherwise perfect, from what he could see. No more mangled metal and bent and torn scraps. It even looked shined. Bucky was impressed.  
“We couldn’t save the star,” said a man across the room, presumably Bruce. “So we just scrubbed it off. If you want it, you’ll have to put it back on yourself.” Bucky swallowed. No more star. That was good, that was a plus.  
“No, it’s fine,” Bucky said and tried not to let on how relieved he was not to have to look at it on his shoulder anymore.  
“Alright, let’s get this thing back on you,” Tony said, clapping his hands together and striding forward. Bucky followed with equal parts excitement and apprehension. He had missed having two arms.  
“We’ll need to have a look at the socket quick, too,” Bruce added. “Before we can do much.” Wordlessly, Bucky approached the table and pulled his shirt off over his head. The metal on his chest looked bare and lopsided, he knew. He had spent plenty of time in front of the mirror studying it.  
“There’s a switch,” Bucky said. “Or, there was. And it clicks in.”  
“We found that,” Tony said, beckoning Bruce to the table and picking up the metal prosthetic with two hands. “Sit up on the table and we’ll work on it,” he instructed. Obediently, Bucky used his one hand to heave himself up onto the tabletop and slouched there. Tony and Bruce buzzed around his left side, making ‘hmm’ sounds and scientific remarks to each other. Tony pulled out a bag of chips and offered some to Bruce, who accepted. He then offered some to Bucky, which caught Bucky a little off-guard. He realized wasn’t used to being offered things or treated very equally. It rather delighted him to be an equal. He took advantage of the situation and tried a few of the chips, which turned out to be repulsive, but he chewed and swallowed them politely and didn’t say a word. It was a small gesture, he knew that, and one Tony probably didn’t even realize had any significance to him whatsoever, but it meant the world to Bucky Barnes.  
“If we fit this piece here, it’ll click in and he can test it out,” Bruce finally said. Tony shrugged.  
“Alright, let’s do this,” he agreed. Together, the men pushed Bucky’s left arm into place with some force, enough to nudge Bucky over just a tad, and then there was a small click and a nearly inaudible whir and suddenly he had an arm again. He looked down at it and could nearly weep with joy, except that he refused to let himself. He couldn’t, however, stop a small, relieved smile from tugging at his mouth ever so slightly. He tested out the fingers first. They all curled at his command. His elbow moved in and out, his shoulder rolled, his wrist turned. The plates of metal slid up and down soundlessly in a beautiful sort of gleaming symmetry. He almost laughed out loud. A voice in his head muttered ‘broken inside, broken outside’, but he ignored it.  
“This is great,” Bucky said quietly and grinned cautiously at Bruce and Tony. “Thank you.” Bruce had already started to turn away, his eyes on the floor, as they seemed to consistently be.  
“Don’t thank us, it was no trouble,” he said.  
“Yeah, thank your cheerleader, Cap,” Tony said. “Speaking of whom, where is he? He said he wanted to see you. Bruce, have you seen Steve?” Bucky’s good mood dropped in an instant and everything in him protested.  
“No, no, don’t call him here,” Bucky cried, a little louder than he had meant. Tony turned to him, confused.  
“Are you sure?” Tony asked. “I’m sure he’s just around the--”  
“I don’t want him here,” Bucky cut him off hastily. “I just don’t.”  
“What is it about me that he suddenly hates so much!!” Steve cried, standing out of his chair in the surveillance room in the basement of Stark Tower. Natasha, folded up in her chair next to Steve, sighed ever so slightly.  
“I don’t want to see him,” Bucky said on the camera. Steve watched, distressed, as his friend stood up off the table, both arms available to him now, and back away from Tony and Bruce. He clutched his shirt with both hands, wringing the fabric. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it. Hair was hanging in his eyes. “Thanks, I’d like to get back to DC now.”  
“I don’t understand,” Steve groaned.  
“Maybe he just needs more time,” Natasha suggested, staring at the glowing monitors as Bucky insisted that Tony take him back to DC.  
“I’ve given him time. He’s had time,” Steve said. Natasha looked up at Steve from her chair and watched him pace. Bucky’s constant rejections were tearing him apart.  
“The guy’s been through hell, Steve, and he doesn’t even think he knows you,” she said.  
“I know,” Steve said, his voice dark. His face was turned away from her. He was in pain.  
“If you really wanted to, you could stop him before Tony gets the plane ready,” Natasha suggested.   
“And he’d strangle me to death,” Steve retorted, throwing his hands up. “I’m going home. Bye, Natasha.” He slammed the door behind him before she could say goodbye too. Natasha sighed again and frowned at the monitors, where Tony and Bruce were chatting again and Bucky was staring at his left hand with a frown.


	11. Hydra

Bucky didn’t have much of a reason to return to DC. Nothing waited for him there. But he feared Hydra was still in New York and he wanted out of there, on the fastest plane he could find, and disappear so they could never find him again.  
Tony took him back that very night. Bucky took Steve’s dufflebag of clothing, the sum of all of his possessions, and thanked Tony again. He tried to smile at him, to be friendly, but it came off as stiff and somehow still miserable, so he stopped trying and watched Tony leave silently.  
He found a hotel outside of the airport that took his cash, so he barricaded himself in for the night and stared at the ceiling, wondering how to properly disappear.  
Bucky spent the next week in that hotel, remembering. It was hard on him and he was frustrated when he didn’t get very far, which was often. But, he thought, if he was going to hide himself from Hydra, he needed info on them, and with some luck, he might have all the information he needed inside his scrambled mind. The hard part was doing the unscrambling, however, and he often slept after a particularly long attempt at remembering with a massive headache and shaking hands.  
The torture and punishments were the easiest to remember. They lept out of his mind, jumping to the forefront as though eager to be re-lived. This did not please Bucky and more often than not, it stunted or stopped his memory searches altogether. Possibly due to this, Bucky had also begun to experience flashbacks more frequently than usual. Sometimes, they were pictures he didn’t recognize at all. Faces he didn’t know, places he thought he’d never seen. Other times, worse times, he didn’t get a picture. He got the emotional memory and found himself stopping on the streets with tears running down his face and no idea why, or lashing out in a sudden rage to anyone or anything near him for reasons he could only guess at. Once, in the night, he woke with tears streaking his cheeks and the inability to catch his breath and he sat on his bed and shivered with horrible fear until the sun came up and the feeling passed.  
So far, his information about Hydra and where it could be now was limited. He remembered some faces, people he thought might still live, and he filed away their memory as people to avoid. He remembered some missions, places and targets, most now long changed or dead by his own hand. But recalling the missions, where and who and maybe even why, Bucky just might be able to put together a picture of what Hydra was doing. He wrote down a lot and he began keeping a sort of journal and found it helped.  
Bucky also tried to remember Steve, when he was feeling particularly strong, or else particularly guilt-ridden. It was during these memory searches that he felt real, venomous hatred and blame towards himself arise from deep parts within his heart, more so even than the memories of the numberless and nameless murders he had committed. Of all the things he should remember, Bucky knew, he should remember Steve.   
He got a few flashes. A smile on a sunny day. A skinny kid in an alley, in a lot of alleys, actually. Bruises and shields and war. But none of the memories were comprehensive and none of them told him anything about his relationship with Steve, or about whom he had been. His mind seemed particularly determined to keep Steve and his past a mystery and he hated himself for it. Nevertheless, he recorded each flash with care in his new journal and didn’t dare wonder if there would ever come a day when Bucky could redeem himself and they could be friends again.


	12. ---

The Winter Soldier remembered one mission in which he staged a car accident and killed two people. Something in him told him those people were important, even as he raised the gun. And he knew now, remembering. He wanted to know who those people were, but thinking about them hurt and when his hands began to shake, he stopped. It would come to him eventually, among with all the other murders he performed. Painful memories didn’t stay hidden for long. He counted on it.


	13. Dream

Bucky had a dream that night. It was, for the first time in maybe years, a happy dream and it was so real, so solid that Bucky could almost taste it. There was something distinctly memory-like in it and Bucky awoke with an itching desperation to know whether or not he had imagined the whole scenario or if it had arisen to him like a blessing from his broken mind.  
The dream was simple. It was 1936 or 7 or somewhere around there and he was maybe ten or eleven from what he could tell. Steve was there, and Bucky barely recognized him compared to the Captain America he saw now. Steve was tiny, thin and skinny and sick, but definitely Steve. He had the same face, the same serious blue eyes. Steve had a cold in the dream, but it was a heck of a cold and he was bed-ridden. Bucky was there, he was sitting by his bed, kicking his feet over the chair.  
“Steve,” said dream Bucky with two flesh and blood arms and a cocky expression to hide what was surely frightened uncertainty. “You’re gonna get better soon, kay?”  
“Okay,” said dream Steve miserably.  
“Did you do anymore of them drawings today?” Dream Bucky asked and Steve shook his head against his pillow.  
“My notebook’s still over there. I didn’t have anything to draw,” he said. Ten year old Bucky smirked.  
“You should draw me,” he said.  
“I already drew you, stupid,” Steve said and laughed, but his laughter dissolved into coughs.  
“Do you need your inhaler?” Bucky asked, concerned. Steve’s face hardened and he shook his head violently.  
“I’m fine,” he said.  
“Okay,” Bucky said. There was a pause during which Bucky laughed a little. “You should draw me again.”  
“Draw yourself,” Steve retorted. Real-life Bucky didn’t get to see how ten-year-old dream him responded because soon after that, he had awoken and stared at the ceiling for a full half an hour thinking about it.  
It felt real. It felt like the realest memory he’d had in a long time, but still… It could still be just a dream. Bucky paced in his hotel room, thinking. Was it worth it, calling to ask? Bucky had written the whole dream down in meticulous detail into his journal, and then torn it out, and then wrote it in again after he changed his mind. He wanted to know, he had to know. Had that been him? Had he actually remembered something real and solid and full for once? Maybe he had just done something right, maybe he could replicate it and dream himself back all of his memories. But he was still stuck at square one, he was still at a loss for whether it was even legitimate or not.  
Bucky’s hand hesitated over the phone many times that morning. He had Steve’s number. He remembered it from Nick Fury’s broken phone. Could he bring himself to call him?  
Eventually, he threw down his memory journal on the counter and pulled on his jacket and left the hotel. He had work to find and Hydra members to run from. He had no time for hesitating over the phone like he didn’t know how to dial a number, feeling sicker and sicker over a dream that really had no relevance, and why should he? If Steve was important, he was important to a past version of him, to Bucky 1.0, not now, not ever, he could push him away, he could run from the whole thing and just run and jump and nothing but sky for miles, no concerns and sick feelings and confusing dreams and conflicting emotions and-No! Bucky made himself stop. He halted on the street and unclenched his fists slowly. He took a deep breath. He cleared his head. No running or jumping. No yelling in his own mind. He took another slow, slow breath. He refused to allow himself to become distraught and he pushed his feelings away again and forgot about it.


	14. Elevator

Bruce Banner, the quiet man with the downcast eyes from Tony’s tower earlier, had found his hotel and sent him a call. He wanted Bucky to return for a check-up on the arm.   
“It’s working fine,” Bucky said.  
“We’d really just like to be sure,” Bruce explained. “And besides, Mr., um, it was Barnes right?”  
“Yes,” Bucky said.  
“Mr. Barnes, your arm is,” Bruce laughed a little. “Your arm really is something else. Tony and I were really impressed and if you don’t mind, we’d like the opportunity to see it again.”  
So that was it. They just wanted to look at it. Bucky glanced down at his left arm and flexed it out a little, watching the metal plates slide and click into place as he moved. He couldn’t blame them, Hydra had done a beautiful job with it.  
Bucky hated the thought of it and he considered just not going, but he was struck with the sinking fear that something serious might happen to his arm again and he would be completely alone. Something in him cried out for the first time in a long time against being alone. Bucky decided then to comply with Bruce’s request.  
“Tony says he’ll have a plane waiting for you at the airport, okay?” Bruce said.  
“How did you get this number?” Bucky asked abruptly once Bruce finished speaking.  
“I traced you,” Bruce said as though it was the simplest thing to do.  
“Am I that easy to find?” Bucky raged and slammed the phone down in frustration. He would have to get better at hiding. If Bruce and Tony could find him so easily, surely Hydra already had a visual on him.  
The next day at four, Bucky was in New York again, having taken Tony's plane. The travel had been uneventful. He had done everything Tony had done before him.  
The plane dropped him off at a nearby private airport, however, instead of Stark Tower itself, so Bucky was forced to call another cab since he didn’t know the way.  
Bucky arrived at Stark Tower soon after and entered the building. The elevators to the top, where Tony most certainly was did not stand empty, to Bucky’s dismay. He recognized the tall frame of Steve Rogers before them, waiting, his hands folded in front of him. Flashes assaulted Bucky, near painful ones, of the skinny boy in the sick bed. That smile and the bruised faced, the hand on a shoulder. Bucky gritted his teeth and forced himself to do it, just do it. He walked up to Steve, tense, and stood next to him, glaring at the ground. He spread his legs out just a little, bent his knees, ready to flee if he had to. He felt Steve’s eyes on him as he looked over.  
“Bucky!” Steve said in surprise.  
“Steve,” Bucky replied quietly in greeting.  
“What are you doing here?” Steve had turned his body towards Bucky, opening his arms just a little. Bucky stood tense and unmoving, his eyes still fixed to the floor. He frowned and looked up, past Steve, to the elevator numbers ticking down at the top of the door.  
“Checking up on my arm,” Bucky explained.  
“It’s been working, right?” Steve asked. He was concerned. He shouldn’t be concerned.  
Bucky considered a lot of things to say. It doesn’t matter, Steve. Stop caring, Steve. None of your business, Steve. I’m not Bucky, Steve, I’m not your friend. I may have his face, but I am broken and twisted beyond recognition and it would only hurt you to know me because I am not Bucky, so stop asking, stop checking in on me, stop being concerned. Leave me alone, Steve.  
“Yeah,” Bucky replied, swallowing his thoughts. The dam was in check. “I think, uh, I think they’re just making sure.”  
“Oh, well that’s good,” Steve said. The elevator dinged cheerily and the doors opened. Steve fell back, hesitated, until Bucky stepped into the elevator. Then Steve followed and the doors closed and up they went. Bucky stared at the ground. He looked at the carpets and corners where the floor met the wall and the line of buttons where he had pressed the top one, anywhere but Steve.  
“I’m going up, too,” Steve said. “Up, I mean, to the top.” Bucky nodded tersely. “There’s some confidential information about SHIELD we need to discuss in person. From Fury.”  
“Should I wait outside the room, then,” Bucky said.  
“No, no,” Steve reassured him. “It’s fine, you should be there.” Bucky nodded again. In his head flashed the images from his dream. You should draw me. I already drew you. Draw me again. Feel better, Steve.  
“Do you, uh-” The words caught in Bucky’s throat. It was almost like he was sharing something intensely personal instead of asking a silly question.   
“Sorry, what?” Steve asked, turning to him.   
Bucky still couldn’t look Steve in the eye. His right hand clenched his left.  
“Do you draw,” Bucky said. He made a motion with his hands, trying to mimic a pencil. “Art, I mean.”  
“Yeah,” Steve said encouragingly. He seemed a little excited, realizing that Bucky had remembered something, anything about him. Bucky wanted to back away now. He didn’t remember anything, he didn’t want to disappoint. “Do you want to see my notebooks?” Bucky considered this, rubbing his left palm. The dam was holding up and the floods were steady. Did he want to see Steve’s notebooks? And what did this mean for his dream, was it a memory? Bucky seemed to think yes. So, he supposed, he could look at the drawings. What harm could it really do? If it got too bad, if anything happened, he could run. The elevator dinged again as Bucky felt it halt and the doors began to open.   
“Sure,” Bucky said. I’d like that, he thought, but didn’t have the courage to add.   
Tony greeted Bucky and Steve at the elevator and beckoned them inside. Bruce invited Bucky to sit on the table where he had sat the last time and Bucky waited there while Steve kept a good distance at the other side of the room. Bucky clenched his metal hand and waited while Tony and Bruce did small tests and checks. He didn’t even have to take his shirt off, which was nice because it was rather cold in the tower and the metal against his body didn’t do much by body heat. As the Bruce and Tony worked, Steve briefed them with Fury’s messages, arms folded, pacing ever so slightly.  
“He wants to have a meeting soon,” Steve said.  
“Where?” Bruce asked. “Move your fingers. No, no, that way. Yeah, there.”  
“Bruce, hand me the blueprints. Probably in, uh,” Tony glanced at Bucky. “The same place as last time.” Bucky automatically dropped his eyes to the ground.  
“It’s fine, Tony,” Steve said in a tone that bordered defensive. “Bucky’s coming with us.” Bucky looked up and jumped just the slightest, startled.  
“Hold still,” Bruce said.  
“What do you mean, I’m not going, I’m not going anywhere,” Bucky said.  
“Fury wants to see you,” Steve said, his eyebrows going up just the slightest in expectation, as though he was waiting for Bucky to settle down and agree. Bucky wished he could say he recognized that gesture.  
“I don’t want to see him,” Bucky replied. “He wants me to reconsider, I don’t, I don’t want to. I’m not going to go back doing the things I was doing. I’m not making exceptions. He told me I wouldn’t owe him anything for my shoulder!” Steve’s brow furrowed now and he unfolded his arms. He took a step closer to Bucky.  
“What are you talking about?” he asked. Bucky stared at him. His hair was falling in his eyes, but he left it there.  
“I’m talking about Fury’s offer, I already said no,” Bucky said. Steve was beginning to look angry.  
“What offer?” Steve asked. Tony and Bruce had stopped working and were now both staring back and forth between Bucky and Steve. The room had gone silent.  
“Did he, did he say nothing to you?” Bucky said. “He wants me to join SHIELD and work as an assassin. He said he could use a man like me. I said I-I could never do that again. Not now.”  
“And what about your shoulder,” Steve prodded. Bucky looked down a little and shrugged.  
“He offered to have my dislocated shoulder fixed by people who wouldn’t ask questions. But he said he would do it for me without recompense, which is why I took him up. But now he’s calling me again,” Bucky explained. Steve’s face masked badly-hidden rage. Bucky noticed he was making fists. A part of him reached out. Steve, don’t make any rash decisions. Don’t jump into any fights you can’t win, I’m not always gonna be there to drag you out. The words slammed into Bucky like a bullet, a memory without an image. He saw Steve in front of him and Steve in his bed in 1936 and felt a disembodied, overwhelming need to just protect him. Admittedly, it shook Bucky. He wasn’t prepared.  
“Don’t think you have to do anything he tells you to do, Bucky,” Steve was saying. Bucky looked over at him.  
“Don’t think you have to protect me,” he said, his voice deadpan. Because, he realized in his thoughts, I was supposed to protect you.  
Steve looked like he’d been slapped and Bucky regretted his words a little. Maybe he would back off now.  
“Well this has been fun,” Tony said loudly. “But if we’re all done here, Pepper and I have a dinner planned, so goodbye! You know where the door is.” Steve didn’t move. Bucky, staring at Steve, was still as well. Tony was beginning to get aggravated. “Look, it’s not that I don’t love having a bunch of angsty 90 year old super soldiers hanging around my place, it’s just that this is getting weird and I don’t do weird.” Bucky slid himself off the table slowly and shuffled back to the elevator wordlessly.  
“Thanks,” he said to Tony and Bruce. Bruce gave a small wave. Hands still in fists, stalking and fuming, Steve followed Bucky to the elevator and stood, crossing his arms tightly as the doors closed in front of them.   
Halfway down the building, Steve glanced over at Bucky.  
“You still wanna see my drawings?”  
“Yeah.”


	15. ---

The thing was, Steve was the first person to treat the Winter Soldier like a human being in years. The first person to look at his face and his eyes and say a name. The Winter Soldier had not been prepared for what that did to him, for the way being treated like a person threw him. He didn’t know how to handle it, he wasn’t sure how to be a person. He could play the part of weapon. He was used to that, used to the degradation and the unworthiness and the way he and his feelings amounted to zero. He didn’t know if after all that he’d been through, he could play the part of human. Still, through the pain and the fear and the uncertainty, to be recognized as a person was such a refreshing taste that the Winter Soldier never wanted to be a weapon again. He didn’t want to be a used thing anymore. Despite the way he lashed out, he was so, so grateful to Steve and he owed him the world.


	16. Art

Steve joined Bucky on Tony’s plane. He was still visibly hurt, no matter how he tried to hide it.  
"Bucky, did you remember something?" He asked. Bucky was looking out the window, watching the lights turn into fuzzy blurs below as the plane took off. He swallowed and looked down at his hands. No shaking.  
"I had a dream," Bucky said. "It felt real."  
"And that's how you knew the drawing thing," Steve said. Bucky nodded. His hair fell in his eyes. He needed to get it cut again. He hadn’t cut it that short in the first place, it had only been a trim, still long in the front but just another way to put distance between himself and his recent past. He considered cutting it shorter, like he had seen pictures of himself from before, but he didn’t know if he wanted to look like before.  
"You weren't drawing in the dream, we were just talking about it," Bucky admitted.  
"So what you're saying," Steve said with a sudden, drastic switch into lightheartedness. "Is that you don't know whether I'm any good or not." Bucky looked over at Steve, alarmed. He didn't really know how to respond, he was rarely addressed this way. Had he offended him?  
"That's not what I meant to say," Bucky backpedaled. Steve frowned and looked down, his features becoming stony again and Bucky was at a loss.  
"It was a joke," he said. "Buck, it was just a joke." Bucky froze, humiliated and overly aware that this was not how he was supposed to act. This wasn't what Bucky 1.0 was supposed to say. He didn't know know to play it off.  
"I don't...," Bucky said after a long pause. “I don’t remember everything, Steve. I can’t, I’m not-” okay. I’m not okay. He stopped and started again. “It’s painful and I’m trying, but I… I. I’m just not-” the same. “I’m not-”  
“I know,” Steve said. No! Bucky cried in his head. No, you don’t know, let me talk! But he said nothing and let the plane ride elapse back into silence. If only he were more eloquent, more articulate. If only he had the courage to put his feelings into words.  
They arrived at Steve’s apartment soon after, having taken a cab, and Bucky followed Steve to his door. He took deep breaths and kept an eye on the dam. There were no flooding memories or disembodied emotions. He could settle his own guilt enough to look Steve in the face and the coldness he often felt buried underneath himself was hidden deep. By all accounts, Bucky seemed okay so when Steve unlocked the door and held it out to him, Bucky took it.  
“I don’t have any of my old art from when we were kids,” Steve said as he shuffled through a nearby bookcase. “But I’ve done stuff since then and I redid some of my favorites.” Steve pulled out a spiral notebook from the bookcase and continued searching. “Some of the old ones are in the museum.” Steve looked over at Bucky. “Have you been to the museum?”  
“Yeah, I saw it. I mean, I just glanced,” Bucky admitted. He had looked at the information about himself. It had been one of the first things he had done, sneaking himself in. He stood in front of a wall with his face on it, dedicated to a man long dead, and stared for ages, searching in his soul for the stirring of a thousand memories that just weren’t there anymore. Eventually, he left.  
Steve now had two or three spiral notebooks of various sizes in his arms. He brought Bucky over to the couch and sat him down and handed him the notebooks. He sat down next to Bucky and Bucky noticed that he was sure to keep just an inch away. He was being cautious. That was good, be cautious for once, Steve. Bucky supposed he remembered being threatened the last time he touched him.  
Steve was a great sketch artist. Bucky recognized images of the city and the Avengers. There was a very beautiful picture of Natasha that Steve had clearly spent time on.  
“These are very good,” Bucky commented. Steve didn’t reply. Bucky flipped through sketch after sketch and stopped as he recognized his own face and felt utterly gutted. It was Bucky, different angles, different expressions. He was laughing in one picture. Bucky realized he couldn’t remembered seeing his own face laughing. It looked like fun. He shut the notebook quickly and picked up the next one, but he was already hurt.  
Captain America did not miss him, Bucky forced himself to remember. He didn't love the Winter Soldier. He wanted his childhood friend back and he couldn't understand that despite the fact that Bucky survived, he didn't, not really. And that was fine, that was okay. Bucky didn't expect Steve to want him. It was just the fact that Captain America seemed to love a memory that no one else could remember and that broke Bucky's heart.  
Bucky didn't want to feel this pressure to be 1.0. He couldn't be that guy, he couldn't hurt himself further in trying, he wouldn't let Steve be led on by a lie. But he still couldn't help but want to please. He wanted to see Steve smile.   
The next book Bucky picked up was significantly worse than the first and Bucky blanched. There it was, on the paper, first page, that flash of a memory that had hit him with a ferocity when Steve touched his shoulder. Small pieces fell into place. It was Steve with the bruises and the smiles and Bucky’s hand on his shoulder. They were kids, it was 1930-something, they were laughing and Bucky felt a certain level of… Disappointment? In himself. He could see it in his own eyes on the page, he’d let Steve down and he laughed it off because Steve laughed it off, but he didn’t want to see his friend with bruises again. Bucky noticed his hands were beginning to shake, just a little. He set the book down and stood up.  
"Where are you going?" Steve asked, bewildered.  
"Leaving. Your art's great, thanks," Bucky said hastily, making a break for the door. Steve bolted up and blocked the exit.  
“Wait!” He cried. “I don’t understand, what have I done?”  
“Please let me leave, Steve,” Bucky pleaded.  
“No! We’re best friends-”  
“No, we’re not.”  
“We’re supposed to work this out together!”  
“But we can’t!” Bucky cried.  
“Why not?” Steve aid. “What is it, why do you hate me?”  
“It’s not you, I don’t hate you,” Bucky replied uncomfortably.  
“Then what is it?” Steve said. Bucky’s face grew cold.  
“Don’t make me remove you from the doorway,” he threatened.  
“Try it!” Steve cried. “You can’t.” Bucky knew Steve was right. He remembered an aircraft and slugging Steve until he bled. He wasn’t going to do that again. Bucky shook his head, swallowing.  
“I’m not talking to you about this right now,” he said.  
“Are you angry? Are you angry with me? Because I didn’t know what to do, Bucky, I couldn’t help you, I didn’t know, you were dead!” Bucky stared for a second, bewildered.  
“What are you…,” he said. Steve’s eyes were unbearable to look into as he stared straight into Bucky’s face and kept talking.  
“You fell off that train and I thought you were dead. If I’d had any idea that they had you… I would have stopped at nothing to save you from this, Bucky,” Steve said. Bucky stared at him and felt a knife of deep-seated agony twist in his gut.  
“It’s not-,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault, Steve.” For a disoriented minute, Bucky stared out at Steve from the eyes of his past self. He felt like Bucky 1.0 and it felt wrong. But between the shock of hearing that Steve blamed himself for the things that happened to Bucky in Russia and the overwhelming emotions, disembodied and not, that began to seep through the cracks in the dam, Bucky didn’t know what to do and all he could think was that he wanted to run.  
“You were counting on me,” Steve said and he sounded as broken as Bucky felt. Bucky stared.  
“I just can’t stop hurting you, can I,” he said quietly. Steve had moved away from the door a little. He wasn’t in any sort of fighting stance anymore. Bucky eased past him through the door and out into the hallway and all he could hear in his head was draw me.  
I already drew you, stupid.


	17. ---

It was like being shelled out, the things that were done to him. Everything that made you who you were, every sunny day in the sun, every friend’s face, every opinion and dream and memory and thought, gone. Scooped out and thrown away because suddenly, it didn’t matter to anyone. You, the you inside, the person you are in your head, the good and the bad and the beliefs didn’t matter and you didn’t know why, he didn’t know why, but it didn’t matter anymore. He was less than that and he didn’t deserve to have that and he wasn’t allowed to have it and he didn’t know why. He didn’t know what he did wrong.


	18. Eyes

Steve paced in front of the couch, staring into space, thinking. Natasha looked up at him quietly.  
“Maybe he’s not the Bucky you remember,” Natasha said. “He’s changed.”  
“We grew up together,” Steve said miserably. “He’s still my best friend.”  
“But he doesn’t think so, Steve,” Natasha replied gently.  
“I’m not going to give up and just let him push me away,” Steve said. “I want to be there for him.” Natasha looked down at the notebooks open next to her on the couch where Bucky had left them. It was open to a drawing of him. “You should have seen his eyes, Natasha,” Steve muttered distractedly. “It’s like he’s just gone. He’s almost dead.”  
Natasha listened to Steve as he carried on, upset.   
“He saved me a hundred times. That’s what friends do for each other and I let him down and I’m not going to let him down again,” Steve said.  
“It wasn’t your fault,” Natasha reminded Steve as she had again and again. Steve just looked at her. “There’s nothing you could have done.”  
“You don’t understand,” Steve said. “I needed to have done something.”


	19. Cowards

Bucky walked home on his aching feet, thinking about his conversation with Steve. It was late, dark and early in the morning, and half-asleep and exhausted, Bucky didn’t notice that it was too quiet and he was too alone.  
The first attacker came from behind him and cupped a hand around his mouth and the second jumped out in front of him and kicked him hard in the gut. Bucky doubled over in shock as the person behind him grabbed his arms and held them behind his back tightly. Bucky screamed, but his mouth was covered and the sound was too muffled to do any good. The man kneed him in the chest and gut again and pulled him up by the hair, punching him repeatedly in the face until he felt blood drip and his cheekbone crack. Pain exploded in his face and his eyes grew unfocused. The person in front of him pulled a large, gleaming syringe out of some hidden pocket and Bucky’s eyes widened. He tried frantically to pull his arms from the attacker behind him, but two more men appeared out of the darkness and jumped on him, holding his shoulders tightly. Bucky squirmed and screamed as the Hydra agent in front of him stepped closer with his syringe. Bucky couldn’t even imagine what it could be. Some sort of poison? Or a sedative? Something worse? As the agent got closer, Bucky picked his feet up off the ground and used both legs to kick the person away with all of his strength. The three attackers behind him stumbled and one of them yelled in Russian. Bucky threw his head back and slammed the back of his skull right into someone’s nose. His head swam as the hand over his mouth let go and Bucky stumbled forward. He spat blood out of his mouth and his teeth felt loose where he had been hit.  
“Leave me alone!” Bucky growled in Russian. None of his attackers responded. The one with the syringe leapt at him with a yell. The Winter Soldier stepped out of the way and grabbed him out of the air, using mostly his left hand to slam the man down onto the pavement. With one swift movement, he pounded his heel into the man’s shin and heard a loud crack. The man screamed and dropped the syringe, which the Winter Soldier scooped up and held above his head as a weapon, his left hand out in front of him like a shield. He noticed another one of the men was leaning against the wall, blood streaming out of his face, most presumably from Bucky’s previous attack, letting out a steady, agonized stream of Russian curses. The other two were starting to back up cautiously, but the Winter Soldier wasn’t ready to let them go just yet. He glared at them and took one step towards them, which sent both men fleeing. The Winter Soldier pursued them. He caught the first man easily and jammed the syringe into his neck. The man collapsed and Bucky left him there. The second man was almost more difficult, but the Winter Soldier caught up with him and pulled him behind a building. A swift jerk cracked his neck.  
Bucky walked back to the original scene of the attack, where only the man with the broken shin remained. Bucky hoisted him up with both hands and held him just above the ground. He glanced at the man’s leg, which was twisted in the wrong direction and gushing blood. He lifted him a little higher. The man was struggling.  
“I’ll drop you,” the Winter Soldier said quietly in Russian. “I’ll throw you down.”  
“No, no, no,” the man protested, bawling.  
“Then talk. Who is left of Hydra?” Bucky asked. He knew he didn’t have much time. The men had been yelling, people would be here soon.   
“T-There’s not many of us left!” The man cried. “That’s why we need you so badly!”  
“Give me names,” Bucky said. His right arm was beginning to feel weary. He’d have to wrap this up. The man began frantically throwing out names, most of which Bucky didn’t recognize.  
“Where are they?” He asked.  
“Everywhere!!” The man replied. “There is no one spot, cut off one head and t-” Bucky was done here. He slammed the man against the pavement and his mantra was cut off by his shrill screaming.  
“Tell your leaders to stop looking for me,” the Winter Soldier said. “I’ll find them. And by then, they’ll wish they’d left me alone.” Bucky wasn’t sure if the man was listening, he was in too much pain. But it didn’t matter now, the city around him was beginning to stir and he had to get out. Bucky ran from the scene and made it back to his hotel before the sun was up. He stood outside of the building and wiped the blood from his face and knuckles, then he gathered his things and checked out immediately.


	20. Fury

Bucky wasn't sure how to properly disappear. As he had realized in past attempts, he was far too easy to find. He never gave motels his real name and he remained as low to the ground and anonymous as possible, but he kept being found. He wasn't sure what else he could do, since he'd never had to do this before, but he figured his first move was leaving that area of DC. Even though the rest of the city was was expensive, he didn't have the money to go anywhere anywhere else. So DC it was.  
Bucky also spent a lot of time thinking about what the Hydra agent had told him. Maybe he was lying. There had to be some sort of headquarters somewhere. They couldn't be so scattered. Where was he even supposed to start?  
And there was no question that he had to hunt them down now. They wouldn't leave him alone otherwise, they would just keep growing and coming and he couldn't fight them all, not when they kept ganging up on him and eventually, they would drag him back to hell and steal everything he'd made for himself. He couldn’t help but be afraid. He was the Winter Soldier, but he wasn’t invincible and he was broken beyond belief. He didn’t know he was going to do it, he just knew that for the love of everything, for his very sense of self, he couldn’t let himself be captured. He would rather be dead.  
It was out of this desperation, again, that Bucky contacted Steve Rogers. He stood outside of his apartment complex in front of the buzzer, hesitating. If SHIELD had any information on Hydra, Bucky wanted it. He just regretted that he had to reach Fury through Steve, and in fact, that he had to reach Fury at all.   
He wanted to approach Fury with clear intentions. He did not want a part of SHIELD-ever. But he would be willing to set up some sort of alliance, if only to make the fear and the attacks stop. He didn’t want to be the Winter Soldier and he didn’t want to be an assassin, but the way his broken cheekbone swelled in the mirror and his shiny new shoulder had already collected some scratches, he didn’t see another way out.  
With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Bucky pressed the buzzer.  
“Hello? This is Steve Rogers,” the speaker said. Bucky hated to speak. He knew the fact that he was here would put hope in Steve’s heart and he didn’t want to watch more hope sink than necessary.  
“I need to talk to you about SHIELD,” Bucky said, trying to sound like he wasn’t there to be personal. There was an uncomfortably long pause. “It’s, uh, it’s Bucky, by the way,” Bucky added, in case Steve didn’t know.  
“I know,” Steve replied. Bucky waited there in the silence for another long pause. He was growing more and more uncomfortable. He felt guilty.  
“I just need some way to reach Fury, Steve,” Bucky said. There was a click and Bucky watched the door in front of him unlock.  
“It’s unlocked,” Steve invited.   
“Thanks,” Bucky said, but he wasn’t sure if Steve heard.  
Bucky found Steve waiting in front of his apartment door. He had his arms crossed over his chest and he was leaning against the doorframe. When he saw Bucky, his eyes widened.  
“What happened to you?” He asked. Bucky didn’t know what he meant for a second, but he soon remembered the giant red bruise on his face that had so alarmed Steve.  
“There was an accident,” Bucky brushed it off.  
“It looks broken,” Steve said. It is, Bucky thought, but since he wanted to move on, he kept quiet. It didn’t matter, broken cheekbones healed.  
“I need to come with you for that SHIELD meeting,” Bucky said. Steve’s face, so full of concern moments earlier, hardened at the mention of the meeting.  
“Are you going to take him up on that offer you told me about?” Steve asked.  
“No,” Bucky said. “But I might consider an alliance, or something. I need information.” Steve looked at him, into his eyes, and frowned. Bucky looked away.  
“What accident was there?” Steve asked suspiciously. “Did someone do that to you?”  
“It doesn’t matter,” Bucky said. Steve stood, leaning away from the doorframe now.  
“It matters,” Steve said. “Who hit you?” Bucky ground his teeth a little in frustration.  
“You want to know who hit me?” He asked, glaring into Steve’s face, his voice maybe a little too cold and his intention maybe a little too mean. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because they’re probably dead right now.” There was a silence and Steve stared, slack-jawed. Bucky was only silent for a minute. “Steve, I need arrangements to see Fury. Now, please.” Bucky could practically see the responses circling in Steve’s head. Steve was at a bit of a loss. He hadn’t expected Bucky’s outburst, and to be honest, neither had Bucky. But the malice had felt somehow relieving, like maybe Steve would realize that Bucky didn’t have a place in his life anymore.  
Finally, Steve replied.  
“We’re all taking a plane to a location I can’t tell you here,” he said under his breath. He leaned closer to Bucky and Bucky strained to hear. “Meet me back here in two days at 3 am at we’ll go together, okay?” Oh, together. Together. Bucky stared at Steve. He didn’t understand, why was Steve doing this?  
“Are you sure?” Bucky asked. He took a step away from Steve again, towards the stairs. Steve straightened up.  
“It’s fine, Buck,” Steve said with a sad sigh and Bucky frowned, taking a breath. How could Steve overlook everything so wrong in Bucky? How could he continue to try to love him? Bucky wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him and cry, ‘no! Stop! Stop making yourself vulnerable to me! I’m just going to disappoint you.’ I don’t deserve your love!  
Bucky turned and left without a word.


	21. ---

If you asked the Winter Soldier why he didn’t deserve things and really made him think about it, he wouldn’t have a truly good answer to give you, because there wasn’t one. He would try to tell you that it was for the things he’d done, but upon pressing, even he would have to admit that he wasn’t at fault for his past. No, he didn’t believe he deserved things because for seventy years, he was treated as though he didn’t. And that makes such a difference. He knew there was something inherently wrong with him that kept him back from having things like love and personal happiness, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was and at what time he started believing that. He supposed it was around the time he stopped believing himself to be a person.


	22. Meeting

Bucky wasn’t sure how long the meeting would take, but he figured it couldn’t be that long, so he left his clothes and duffel bag at the hotel. He did take his memory journal, however. It was small enough to fit in his jacket pocket, but even if it had been too big, he wouldn’t have minded. The weight of his memories in his pocket was not something he resented.  
Bucky met Steve outside of his apartment at three in the morning exactly, two days after they had talked. Steve made eye contact with Bucky, as a sort of signal, and then began walking quickly. Bucky trailed behind, just far enough to be inconspicuous. They reached a mysterious black cab, which reached a mysterious black jet, which took a long time to reach it’s next mysterious destination, during which Steve tried to strike up conversation.  
“Do you want to know where we’re going?” Steve asked.  
“Does it matter,” Bucky said.  
“What information did you want from Fury?” Steve tried again. Bucky didn’t answer. He was actually particularly determined to keep Steve out of his Hydra hunt. Steve didn’t need to know. There was another long pause.  
“You shaved,” Steve said desperately. Bucky looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. Steve raised both of his eyebrows. A smile started to pull at Steve’s mouth and he couldn’t keep it back and he was laughing and Bucky looked away and cracked a small grin.  
“You’re a punk,” he said teasingly before he quite realized what he was doing.  
“Jerk,” Steve said jokingly, but by then, Bucky’s moment of laughter and teasing was gone. The smile melted off his face as he stared out the window. He didn’t know what had possessed him to say that, what part of himself knew how to tease as though he’d been doing it for years. He wanted desperately to take out his journal and write because it felt like a memory and it also felt like pain and writing helped him to sort out his thoughts, but he didn’t want Steve to see his memory journal, it was too personal.  
Even still… He wanted to write. Bucky took out the small journal and his pen and turned his body away from Steve and began writing fiercely. It made him feel so much better to get his thoughts on paper.  
“What’s that?” Steve asked. Bucky glared at him until he fell silent and looked away again. Maybe you’ll see one day, Steve. I’ll leave it to you in my will, how about that.  
They arrived at the mysterious destination an hour later, after they had both fallen into silence. Steve led the way of the plane and Bucky discovered that they were in the middle of nowhere. There were green fields surrounding them on either side, tall grass and even taller corn. The sun was just coming up and made the entire field glow. Bucky stared in awe.  
“It’s nice,” Steve said, noticing Bucky’s expression. “I like it here, too.”  
The jet behind them lifted into the dark portion of the sky and Bucky turned to watch it. He noticed the shrinking dark blue in the sky, the gold of day hedging it away. It was equally as pretty, he decided, as the sunrise behind him. The way the glittering of the stars became one with the bright sky, the way colors began to reach into the darkness. It was like watching a reverse sunrise and he liked it.  
“Fury’s in there,” Steve said and Bucky turned to notice that he was facing the sunrise and Bucky squinted to look at him. Steve was pointing across the field to a small, ramshackle barn-like structure.   
“Who else is here,” Bucky asked, lifting a hand to shield his eyes.  
“A few agents,” Steve said. “The Avengers, mostly. You.” Bucky nodded.  
“Okay,” he said and he began walking, determination in his steps. Steve followed. Bucky made his way across the field until he reached the barn and he pushed the door open. Heads turned and there was a gasp from someone Bucky couldn’t pick out. The inside of the barn was just as ramshackle as the outside, excusing the table in the middle with SHIELD agents around it. Fury sat at the head of the table and smiled at him.  
“Mr. Barnes, glad to see you made it,” he said. Steve reached the door then and stood behind Bucky, flanking his left. “And Steve.”  
“I want to talk to you in private,” Bucky said. There was a pause as everyone in the room hesitated, waiting to see how Fury would respond to the Winter Soldier’s insistent request. Fury looked at the agents around his table.  
“You heard the man,” Fury said. “Go wait outside. We’ll call you back in soon.” Grumbling, Fury’s entourage stood and Bucky stood still as they all shuffled around him to get through the door. He noticed they were particularly careful of his left side. Steve, however, was still there. Bucky looked over his shoulder at him.  
“You need to leave,” he said.  
“Buck-” Steve started but Bucky’s glare cut him off.  
“This doesn’t concern you, Steve,” Bucky said sharply and Steve made a face, looking at the ground. He looked hurt in the way he pursed his lips and hardened his eyes.  
Wordlessly, Steve turned and left. The doors shut behind him and Bucky stood, left with Director Fury.  
“I’m not going to let you push me into becoming a part of SHIELD, sir,” Bucky said.  
“Good thing that’s not my intention, then,” Fury said, standing slowly. Bucky was a bit taken aback. His stare was questioning. “If my guess is right, you’ve been getting some calls from Hydra.” Bucky was aware again of his slowly healing cheek. He didn’t respond and his silence in itself was an answer. “We share an enemy, Barnes,” Fury said.  
“That was my thinking as well,” Bucky admitted.  
“Then we’re on the same page,” Fury asked from where he stood behind his table.  
“I don’t want to be a part of SHIELD,” Bucky continued. “But I know I can’t take Hydra apart by myself; I’m not blind. So I’d be willing to work with you for a time to stop them.” Fury smiled to himself.  
“You’re modest,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind that with your skills and a healthy desire for vengeance, you could cut your way through them without much trouble. But we could still both gain something from teaming up, am I right?” Bucky let his silence agree for him.  
“Do you have any information on Hydra right now?” Bucky asked. “I could start today. We could end them within the month if I work fast enough.”  
“I admire your fervence,” Fury said. “But so far, I don’t know much. I have a few names, but nothing more.”  
“That’s all I need,” Bucky said.


	23. Natasha

The rest of the meeting was relatively quick, but Bucky felt like it lasted an eternity. Fury invited the rest of SHIELD back inside and Bucky sat across the table from Steve and Fury talked about re-establishing SHIELD and flushing out Hydra and Bucky was well aware of all the stares he was receiving from every person at the table, excepting those he knew, like Tony and Bruce, and the way Steve glared at each person he caught staring until that person turned away. Bucky really wanted to leave.  
When the meeting was over, Bucky watched Fury stop Steve and hold him back as the rest of the company exited. Bucky eyed them suspiciously, but eventually turned and left.  
While Steve was in with Fury, Bucky stood with his hands in his pockets, facing away from the rest of the group, staring out over the fields of waving grass. He was surprised when a figure joined him on his left and he glanced over.  
“Hey,” Natasha said. Bucky looked away, back out over the field.  
“Hey,” he said. They stood there in mostly comfortable silence for a moment. Bucky couldn’t fathom what she was doing standing next to him, talking to him. Was this Steve’s doing? A piece of him remembered targeting her and he wanted to shy away, but she didn’t seem scared, so he held his breath and waited, standing next to her. He hoped he hadn’t hurt her, but the trauma in his mind seemed still too fresh and the memory was blurry.  
“They’re all a little surprised that you’re here,” Natasha said, nodding back towards the rest of the SHIELD agents behind them.  
“It was last minute,” Bucky said.  
“I understand,” Natasha said and he wondered if she did, really.  
Another minute passed.  
“I just wanted to let you know that I’m not afraid of you, okay?” she added. Bucky looked over at her again and studied her face.  
“I wasn’t trying to make you afraid of me,” he said. Natasha looked over at him with a small grin on her face and he wondered if he’d said something funny.  
“Even when you shot me in the shoulder?” she asked, her voice teasing. Bucky couldn’t laugh. He had hurt her.  
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, looking her dead in the eye. She smiled again at him.  
“It’s fine,” she said, tossing her hair. “I won’t hold that much of a grudge.” She was trying to tease him, joke with him. Bucky didn’t know how to joke. He remembered back to the plane with Steve, tried to remember how it felt to smile and say something easily, to laugh. He wasn’t sure if he could do it.  
“I know Steve can be sort of overbearing,” she added, as though she had known what he was thinking. “He means well.” Bucky looked down and sighed.  
“I know,” he said.  
“If you need someone to talk to other than him, though,” Natasha continued. “I’d be willing to listen.” Bucky looked over at her, stunned and confused.  
“Why are you doing this,” he asked.  
“Because I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said and not once did she look away from his face. “And I think we could relate to each other.”  
“Could we,” Bucky said.  
“Well, we could,” she said, one corner of her mouth turning up. “If you promise not to shoot me again.” Bucky looked down at her and smiled a little bit back. She was so at ease, he couldn’t help but feel suddenly a little bit better, too.  
“I’ll make a conscious effort,” he assured her with that smile and she laughed. It meant a lot to him, that he could make her laugh, and suddenly, Bucky really liked Natasha. There wasn’t a lot of pressure, it was fairly easy talking to her. He wasn’t constantly thinking about what he should be saying or what he was expected to be saying or if he was causing anyone any more pain. Natasha was easy to get along with.  
She left him with her number, which made Bucky feel like smiling all over again. Needless to say, it was a first for him. At least, to his memory. He would be sure to call her.


	24. Tabs

Steve waited until the room cleared and he approached Fury.  
“Yes, sir?” He asked.  
“Have a seat, Rogers,” Fury said and Steve sat back down at the table, waiting for Fury to explain himself.  
“Is this about Bucky?” Steve asked.  
“How much does Bucky tell you, Steve?” Fury asked. Steve looked away, his frustration and sadness creeping into his face.  
“About what?” Steve replied.  
“About Hydra,” Fury said. “About what he remembers, what’s happening with him now, about his past as the Winter Soldier.”  
“Not much, sir,” Steve said guardedly. “But I’m sure he’ll open up. I didn’t really have plans to give what he shares with me to you, though, sir.” Steve was unsure where this conversation was headed. What did Fury want? “And I’m pretty sure he’s adamant about not becoming a part of SHIELD.”  
“I know,” Fury said. “I just want to make sure you’re keeping tabs on him.” Steve stood abruptly. This was strange.  
“I’m always looking out for him, sir,” Steve said.  
“Thank you, Rogers,” Fury said by way of sudden dismissal. “We’ll be talking again soon.” Steve stared at Fury, calculating, confused.  
“I don’t understand,” he said.  
“It’s better that way,” Fury replied.


	25. Names

When Bucky returned to his hotel room, there was a stack of manilla files sitting on his bed. He disliked Fury’s sneakiness and wished he didn’t have to worry now about who knew where his room was and who had been there, but regardless, he had information now and he couldn’t complain. Bucky sifted through them and found pictures and names and information. Fury had made notes in the corners of some and labeled each file with numbers. Bucky was alarmed to discover that most of his targets were suspiciously close. It was as though they had all been moving in on him. Bucky shuddered and put aside his fear, beginning to make plans for the first file, a one Artyom Kablukov. Russian, of course. He was 47, he was currently in DC and he was the closest to Bucky. He was apparently staying in a hotel four blocks away.  
Bucky found a hat and pushed the brim down so it mostly covered his face and walked four blocks down to the hotel his target was staying. He looked up at the rows of windows, his hands in his pockets, and counted them until he found the room he was looking for. His gut reaction was to find a good place in the building across the road to sit and watch for a good shot, but he made himself stop. He wanted more than that. He wanted answers.   
So Bucky waited. He tracked Artyom Kablukov for a few days or so until he was sure of his schedule and then he devised a plan.  
Kablukov went out for most of the day. He ate at restaurants, spent a suspicious amount of time walking past Bucky’s hotel, and bought souvenirs. On the whole, he spoke to no one and Bucky didn’t see him take any calls.  
An important thing Bucky wanted to take notice of was how much of a coward Kablukov was and how much he valued his own life over Hydra’s well-being. The cowards were easier to pressure. Bucky could point a gun and they would tell him everything. But heros never talked and if Kablukov was of a stronger will, Bucky would have to get creative in his threats or else he wasn’t worth interrogating at all.  
That night, Kablukov got home late. He shut the door behind him and as he turned to flick on the lights, a metal fist came out of darkness and socked him in the face. Kablukov gasped and fell backwards. There was a gleam of metal in the darkness and Bucky stepped forward, wanting his target to see his arm and not have any doubts about who was there in his hotel room with him.  
“We can do this the easy way,” Bucky said in Russian. “Or the hard way. Your choice.”  
“You,” Kablukov gasped.  
“I have a name,” said Bucky. “Not that you would care.” Kablukov started to pull himself up and Bucky pressed a foot on his chest, shoving him back down to the floor. “I want to know about Hydra. Now.”  
“And if I refuse?” Kablukov asked. Bucky glared down at him.  
“Don’t refuse,” he said, pressing on his target’s chest harder. “You’ll regret it.” The man laughed.  
“This is a building full of people, a city just full of them and you think you can come in here and threaten me and not be discovered?” He scoffed.  
“I don’t know, can I?” Bucky said. “You tell me.” He stared steady into Kablukov’s face as if to remind him exactly to whom he was speaking. “I want to know where Hydra’s headquarters is. Where are you regrouping?”  
“You are alone,” Kablukov said with a grin. “Even if you think you have help, you are so alone, yeah? We are growing and you will never be able to take us all.” Bucky sighed and frowned. He kneeled down now, pressing his weight into his knee on the man’s chest and held his throat with his left hand. Kablukov’s eyes bugged. Bucky put his face close to Kablukov’s.  
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” Bucky said quietly. “This is your last chance. Where is your headquarters?” Kablukov grinned as he gasped to breath. Why is it that you always smile before you die, Bucky thought, sickened. They always smile.  
“You don’t want to go back to Russia,” Kablukov said.  
“Is that where the headquarters is?” Bucky asked.  
“We are scattered,” Kablukov replied. “I know nothing more.”  
“Liar,” Bucky said as he snapped his neck.  
Out on the street again, Bucky straightened his jacket collar up around his face. Kablukov had been right, Bucky wasn’t keen on returning to Russia, but he figured if he could attack the heart of Hydra, the rest would wither. He wasn’t here to cut off heads and wait for more to grow. He wanted to stab the whole thing right in the heart.  
The next morning, Bucky awoke early and considered calling Natasha. He didn’t really care what they did or talked about, but he realized he didn’t want to be alone and he craved company. But he knew he couldn’t just call her without a reason. He played over the scenario in his head multiple times and wasn’t sure if he could do it. What would he say to her? Should he suggest they do something together? He was afraid he just didn’t know how to talk to people anymore.  
A knock on the door interrupted Bucky’s thoughts and he froze up, his hands curling into fists, staring at the door. A second later, he realized that he was being paranoid and there was no way Hydra was at his door and he loosened up a little.  
“Bucky?” A familiar voice called. Steve. Bucky exhaled tiredly, wishing Steve would just go away despite Bucky’s desire for company, and then feeling bad that he’d thought it. Bucky approached the door and looked through the peephole. It was Steve alright, and he was alone. Bucky unlatched the door and opened it just enough to slip himself out.  
“Do you need something?” Bucky asked coldly. Steve was looking around the hallway with a sad frown.  
“You’re staying here?” he said. Bucky raised his hands a little.  
“Clearly,” he replied. Steve made a face.   
“Are you comfortable?” he asked. Bucky actually wasn’t sure off-hand. He hadn’t thought whether he was comfortable or not. He supposed he was comfortable enough.  
“Sure,” Bucky said.  
“Your cheek looks better,” Steve commented. Bucky let out a breath.  
“Steve, why are you here?” Bucky asked point-blank.  
“Can I come in?” Steve asked. Bucky glanced back towards his room and considered it. He supposed there wasn’t a reason Steve couldn’t come in. He moved out of the way of the door and let Steve enter. Part of him wished he’d just given in and called Natasha.  
“It’s warm in here,” Steve commented as Bucky followed him in and shut the door.  
“Well, I don’t like it cold,” Bucky replied. Steve half-grinned.  
“I knew that,” he said. Bucky looked at him, a little surprised, as Bucky had just figured it out himself.  
“What else do you know about me?” Bucky asked. Steve looked over at him, eyebrows raised just the slightest.  
“I know you’ve got a stupid sense of humor,” he said with a chuckle. “I know you like to look clean. It makes you feel more confident.” Bucky listened as Steve rattled off facts, his heart breaking as he heard all these things about himself that he didn’t know. Steve continued walking around the hotel room, inspecting Bucky’s living conditions as he talked. Bucky watched him. “You’re a brilliant dancer,” Steve said. “And you were always more suave than me. You not scared to talk to women. You love being with people. You like vanilla over chocolate. You like rollercoasters.”  
“What’s my favorite color?” Bucky asked, his voice sounding more desperate than he had meant it to. Steve stopped and looked at him, as though realizing for a moment just how important all of this was to Bucky. Bucky watched Steve sigh.  
“You like green,” he said. “And yellow.”  
“Do I have a favorite food?” Bucky asked. Steve thought for a minute.  
“Spaghetti,”  
“And meatballs?” Bucky prodded, uncertain. Steve bit his lip.  
“I’m… Not sure,” he said. “Do you want to try it?” Bucky stared at him, realizing with a sinking feeling that the moment was probably over. Steve couldn’t give him all the answers. He shook his head slowly.  
“No, I’m fine,” he said. “Did you have something you wanted to say?” Steve was inching towards the door now, although for the first time, Bucky didn’t want him to leave.   
“No,” Steve said, excusing himself suddenly. “I’ll talk to you later, Bucky.”  
“Bye,” Bucky said sadly and Steve was gone.


	26. ---

The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, he didn’t want any of this to begin with. He never wanted World War 2. He wanted dances with girls and double dates with his best friend. He wanted a family one day, and the grand canyon, and vanilla ice cream in a cone, and to see the new picture in the theatre. He wanted to watch Steve be happy. He wanted his life to be simple. The Winter Soldier didn’t bargain on a draft, he didn’t count on being kidnapped and tortured and losing everything. But sometimes, he guessed, things just didn’t go the way you planned and he had to work with what he was given, even if it was next to nothing. Even if all he felt he could want now, underneath everything, was to run and then jump.


	27. Spaghetti

Bucky didn’t know if Fury was expecting him to report back. The first target was down and Bucky was pretty positive that he was capable in getting the rest on the list by himself, but he had more information now. Russia. Russia was a big place, Hydra could be anywhere. And he could have guessed that information, he really hadn’t learned much. He needed to find his loud-mouthed coward target soon.  
In the meantime, however, Bucky’s mind was on spaghetti. Despite what he’d told Steve, he really did want to try it. He couldn’t remember having it before, he wanted to see if he still enjoyed it. So, he got his nerves settled and called Natasha.  
He left a voicemail.  
“Hey, Natasha, this is, uh, this is Bucky,” Bucky said, trying to bring forth the part of him that Steve had told him didn’t have trouble talking to people. “Steve told me I like spaghetti and I don’t remember having it, so I was going to go try some soon? And I was wondering if you knew any good places and if you’d want to come with me? I cross my heart and promise I won’t shoot you, kay?” And he hung up, caught between berating himself for sounding stupid and praising himself for being able to come up with something relatively funny and normal on the fly.  
The thing was that he didn’t want to go with Steve. There was still too much pressure there. But he was beginning to break from the loneliness, he had to do something, and Natasha had been so kind to him the other day.   
She called back an hour later and he picked up.  
“Hey, I got your voicemail,” she said. “Spaghetti’s cool, I know there’s an Olive Garden around here somewhere. Those places are cheap-ish, want to meet me at that outlet mall by the highway at five?”  
“Yeah, that’d be, uh, that’d be great,” Bucky said.  
“Okay, I’ll see you there!” Natasha said and before she hung up, Bucky stopped her.  
“Natasha,” he said. “Thanks.”  
“Don’t worry about it,” she said.  
Bucky was at the outlet mall at exactly five. There was something in the arriving and the waiting that struck a chord deep inside him and he sat on the corner and began to write, drawing his feelings out of the dark place that he still couldn’t see. It felt familiar and for only a brief moment, he could just see the world change around him, back to the forties, back to flirty half-smiles and spinning dresses on dance floors. He saw himself a completely different person, with confidence and style, friendly and flirty, delighted to be escorting a date and when he came back around, pen in hand, staring into space, he couldn’t believe just how far he’d fallen.  
I have no idea who I am, Bucky scribbled incredulously into his journal. No idea at all.  
“Mr. Barnes, are you here waiting for me?” Natasha said.  
Bucky looked up into Natasha’s face, her shadow falling around him, and the smile he couldn’t hold back surprised even him. It was the confident grin from the forties, it was the happy smile upon seeing a friend, it was the relief in the company he’d been needing for a while.  
“You didn’t have me waiting for long,” he assured her and slipped his journal back into his jacket. Natasha had surely seen it, but she said nothing. He stood and instinct told him to offer her his arm, but frankly, he wasn’t sure if people still did that anymore or if it would make Natasha uncomfortable and he realized as well that the arm he had nearly offered her was a metal killing machine and finally, as all these thoughts flashed through his head, Bucky crammed his hands into his pockets and settled on smiling at her.  
“So, spaghetti, eh?” Natasha said, looking around the outlet mall. Bucky shrugged.  
“That’s what Steve said,” Bucky replied with a small shrug. Natasha looked over at him.  
“And in the past seventy years, you can’t remember having spaghetti even once?” Natasha asked. Bucky shrugged again.  
“I don’t think Hydra was particularly concerned in making sure I got my favorite foods on a regular basis,” he said.  
“All the more reason to tear ‘em down piece by piece,” Natasha replied and Bucky agreed. It wasn’t light-hearted, the way they talked about his past, but it was with a certain air of understanding. Bucky came to realize, standing there on the pavement, that he hadn’t spoken about it so openly before now. In fact, he hadn’t really spoke about it out loud at all. It made him ache inside, like ripping open old wounds, but those old wounds never healed right in the first place, had hardly closed at all, and maybe it was for the best, tearing them open again, if only to let them heal properly this time around. Maybe he needed to talk about it.  
“So you said something about an Olive Garden earlier?” Bucky said, changing the subject. He would talk about it, he would, just not right this minute. Not when they were both supposed to be having fun.  
“Yeah, I see it, right over there,” Natasha pointed across the outlet mall to a small restaurant and he let her lead him there.   
They sat inside the restaurant and Bucky again got the distinct feeling of being another him in another time, but tried to shake it off since he was finally out and smiling and having a happy time, a normal time, and he didn’t need Bucky 1.0 impressions from the darkened parts of his head ruining that for him. He could go a row with the tangled memories later. Today, he was going to concentrate on the way Natasha took his long silences in stride and how she still smiled at him even though he knew he looked like he had just re-lived World War 2 all over again in a second.  
The waiter came and took their orders and Bucky ordered meatballs on the side, just in case, he explained to Natasha, and she got some sort of complicated-sounding soup and encouraged him to try the breadsticks. He did and he loved them.  
“Do you have a favorite food?” Bucky asked her in-between devouring the breadsticks.  
“Wine,” she said after some thought. “And strawberries.”  
“Together?” Bucky asked and she laughed.  
“No, separately. As two different things,” she said.  
“Well, you can’t pick two,” Bucky teased her, stepping carefully, watching himself, unsure in the area of being friendly. “You have to pick one, that’s the point of a favorite.”  
“Yeah, you say that now, but when your spaghetti comes, you’re going to be hard-pressed to pick spaghetti over those breadsticks,” Natasha joked and he laughed. He laughed. The Winter Soldier laughed and it stunned him so much that he actually stopped laughing for a moment and sat there for a moment with a shocked expression on his face. Natasha looked concerned.  
“Are you okay?” She asked. He nodded slowly.  
“Just, uh, just haven’t laughed in around seventy years or so,” he admitted. Natasha looked down at her plate, then glanced back up at him.  
“Things are gonna get better,” she said to him quietly. He wanted to say ‘I know’, but he couldn’t get the words out and instead he just nodded.  
Their dishes were brought to the table and Natasha had been right. Bucky had a difficult time choosing spaghetti or breadsticks because the spaghetti was like nothing he could remember having before and it was great and it was fun to eat and he even loved the meatballs.  
“I have a theory,” Natasha said.  
“What’s that,” Bucky asked through a mouthful of pasta.  
“You just like carbs,” Natasha replied with her teasing grin. He grinned back and slurped another noodle loudly in her face.


	28. Loneliness

Steve Rogers had the golden heart of a good man. He had all the best of intentions and he loved Bucky Barnes like a brother. He had for years.  
But there were so many regrets now, so many things changed, and so much hurt Steve thought he could drown in it. Like he had told Natasha Romanoff weeks ago as she sat on his couch and listened to his agony, he had watched the introduction to Bucky’s personal hell. He remembered that fight, that train, that deep, snowy ravine and berated himself constantly, tortured himself, thinking if only, if only. If only he had reached harder for Bucky. If only he could have diverted the blast, kept the train car intact. If only he had found Bucky before Hydra did. He’d saved him once before, but after that, it seemed as though their luck was up and it was Bucky who bit the bullet and lost everything. Steve knew it. He saw it in his friend’s eyes. They had drained the very soul out of him and Steve wasn’t quite sure what they had replaced it with.  
Regardless, Steve wasn’t going to let Bucky down again. No matter the rejection he received, no matter the situation, Steve was going to be there for his friend. He would never fail him again if he could help it. In his head, Steve could see the first time Bucky had been taken prisoner by Hydra. He saw the dark room, the straps around his hands and feet and the blank stare on his face as he mumbled.  
It’s me, it’s Steve.  
Steve felt sick. He was pacing his apartment, wearing a rut into the carpet as the day grew dark around him. He could see the countless times Bucky had stood between him and angry bullies, nasty older boys with fists as big as Steve’s whole face. Bucky had never let him down. The weight of Steve’s failure sat on him as heavy as the world. He shouldn’t have, he didn’t need to, but Steve Rogers took it all. He took the responsibility for everything. Every bullet shot because Bucky didn’t know what he was doing. Every year spent in cryo-stasis like a tool turned off. Every memory wiped that kept Steve himself from rising in Bucky’s memory and kept him away still.  
And through it all, Steve was alone. He’d begun to get used to being alone, in this new world he lived in where no one was really like him at all. Natasha was his friend, but she’d heard it all and she’d listened and he couldn’t ask her to do it one more time. Bucky’s return should have been a miracle, should have been a blessing, but it seemed to cause the both of them more pain than joy. Peggy was a ghost and as much time as he spent by her side, she remembered him as much as Bucky did.  
Steve was just spending a lot of time by himself and it was eating him alive.  
That night, however, he received a call he hadn’t expected and he picked up the phone, unsure of what he was going to hear.  
“Steve!” Bucky exclaimed and he almost sounded like he had seventy years ago in Brooklyn and Steve felt gutted standing there, holding the phone to his face.  
“Bucky,” Steve said.  
“You were right about spaghetti,” Bucky said and he, Steve couldn’t be sure, but did he sound like he was smiling?  
“I was?” Steve said, mostly just for something to say.  
“Yes, most certainly. And meatballs are really, I mean, they’re good, too,” Bucky replied, speaking fast. He was excited to talk to Steve, he was excited to share this with him. Steve thought maybe he ought to pinch himself.  
“Are you okay?” Steve asked after a second.  
“Steve, hey! I was just taking Bucky out to the Olive Garden, he said you told him his favorite food? He also likes bread, just a heads up,” Natasha’s voice came through the phone and Steve could absolutely not believe what he was hearing.  
“Is this a joke,” he said. There was a pause and it sounded like Bucky was mumbling something.  
“You should come down and meet us, Steve, we’re out by the highway, it’ll probably take you two minutes to run here,” Natasha suggested and Bucky mumbled something else and Natasha mumbled back and Steve swallowed uncomfortably.  
“No, I, uh, I actually can’t, thanks though,” Steve said quietly. Inside, he was screaming. He had been wishing for company, he had been so lonely, but he hadn’t imagined anything like this. Without Steve, Bucky was happy, and that seemed so backwards to Steve that it hurt to face the fact. “Glad to see you’re rediscovering spaghetti, Buck,” Steve said. There was a pause and suddenly, Bucky wasn’t so excited anymore.  
“Yeah,” Bucky said.  
“Okay,” Steve said and there, he was gone, Steve had lost him again. Bucky went silent and Natasha said goodbye and Steve hung up and he stood there for another good, solid minute, never having felt so alone in his entire life. He had spent months of steady work and trying to be kind and gentle and he hadn’t gotten so much as a real, honest smile out of James Buchanan Barnes, former best friend, but suddenly, in one afternoon, he was out at restaurants, having meals with everyone else and he was just fine, happy even, and maybe Steve was the one in his way, stopping him from growing away from his past.  
There was an element of jealousy in Steve’s heart when he realized that Bucky was so happy and at ease with Natasha. He didn’t understand why that couldn’t be him there on the other end of the line, seeing his friend smile. But mostly, Steve felt guilty about it. He’d had no idea how much Bucky could have healed, and so fast, in the presence of someone else. Steve was, in fact, hindering him and he didn’t know what to do about it.  
This was proof, Bucky could be happy without him. Bucky was better off without him and it was Steve in the end that was hurting him.  
But then, Steve thought in agonized confusion, why had Bucky called?


	29. Brazil

Bucky wasn't sure why he had called Steve. It had been his gut instinct, asking for Natasha's phone and beginning to dial the number and when he quite realized what he was doing, he blanched, but Natasha had encouraged him to continue.  
So Bucky had called Steve's number and tried to put on the happiness he'd had earlier, to share it with him, but Steve didn't respond well, he seemed confused, or else mad, and Bucky began to panic. He realized he simultaneously wanted Steve there as support, and wished he could find the courage to push him away for good. Natasha took over for him from there out and Bucky tried to whisper to her, to tell her to apologize to Steve and tell him not to come, but she made a face at him and continued talking anyway. When they hung up, Bucky stared into his food on the table, his head in his hands, his appetite gone. Natasha was quiet, waiting for him. Bucky couldn't believe how bad that had been.   
"I just, I just wanted-" he stopped himself and scoffed. "I don't know what I wanted." He thought maybe he ought to just leave now. Natasha hadn't seen him at his worst and he didn't want his darkness to scare her.  
"I'm sorry, Bucky," she said quietly. "I think he just didn't understand, we caught him off-guard."  
"I should go," Bucky said. Natasha looked at him pitying.  
"Are you sure? Do you want to talk about it?" She asked. He knew it, he was worrying her.   
"Nothing to talk about," he said, withdrawing, pulling away, though on the inside he was screaming at her, please don't leave me.  
They both paid and parted ways quietly. He wanted to apologize for ruining everything when they had been having fun, but he didn't say anymore and simply began walking. He reached his hotel before too long and shut himself inside. Much to his surprise, on his bed sat a few more files, a thousand dollars in cash and a loaded handgun. He sifted through it all, shocked. Next meeting, he decided, the first thing he was going to tell Fury was that sneaking around and having people put things in his room was not okay.  
The new files contained more Hydra members. He added them to his pile and pulled out the second target, skimming the information and thinking. Anna Rhodes, 32, in a hotel about a half an hour’s walk from Bucky’s. He met her at her door in the dark that very night, just like he’d met Kablukov, but this time, he cocked his gun and cleared his throat. Rhodes jumped, dropping the parcels in her hands. Bucky used his left hand to point his gun into the light, pointed directly at her forehead. She glared into the darkness at him.  
“The Winter Soldier,” she said. “We’ve been warned that you were rogue.”  
“I wouldn’t exactly call myself rogue,” Bucky said as he stepped forward, pushing Rhodes back with the barrel of his gun. “That would imply that I was willingly working for you in the first place.” She smirked at him.  
“Small sacrifices must be made, soldier,” she said. “Minor details, inconsequential-”  
“It was my life!!” Bucky roared, enraged to have his dehumanization considered an inconsequential sacrifice. Rhodes gave him a knowing smile.  
“Is that not what all soldiers put on the line, in the end?” she asked. Bucky gritted his teeth, glaring at her.  
“I’m not here to talk,” he said. “I’m not playing this stalling game with you.” He jabbed his gun at her. “Tell me where Hydra is in Russia or I’ll shoot.”  
“You’ll shoot anyway,” Rhodes challenged him.  
“So buy yourself some time,” Bucky growled.  
“Did Kablukov tell you we were in Russia?” Rhodes asked innocently. “He was a fool. Hydra hasn’t been welcome in Russia for years.” Bucky stared at her, trying to judge her honesty. She was too calm, too collected with his gun in her face. Who was to say whether she was telling the truth? But then again, who was to say if Kablukov hadn’t been wrong after all?  
“Then where are you,” he demanded.  
“Every place you would never think to look,” she hissed. Bucky let out a breath of exasperation.  
“Cute,” he said, tightening his finger on the trigger. “I can see we’re not getting anywhere today, so-”  
“Wait, wait, wait!” Rhodes cried, throwing up her hands and Bucky hesitated.  
“You wanna give me something now?” He asked.  
“Yes!” She cried and this was what he had been banking on. She was starting to lose her cool. “We’re in Brazil!” Bucky stared, confused.  
“Brazil,” he repeated. “That doesn’t even make sense, why would you be in Brazil?”  
“It’s cheap,” she said. “No one notices.”  
“You’re lying,” he accused her angrily. She took a deep breath and shrugged at him, as though to dismiss what should have been a good try.  
“Makes more sense than Russia,” she said scoffingly and he pulled the trigger.


	30. Together

“Since when do you talk to Bucky?” Steve asked Natasha as she walked through the door of his apartment. “Since when do you go out to dinner with Bucky?” Steve was trying very, very hard not to be jealous, but he needed answers and he wanted to know what he was doing so wrong that in the presence of someone else, Bucky had made great strides in the field of being happy that Steve had never seen. And that’s what really hurt him, in the end. That Steve couldn’t make Bucky smile.  
“Since he looked like he needed a friend,” Natasha said. Her words weren’t intended to be hurtful, but they stung Steve to his core. Natasha realized her blunder almost immediately after she’d spoken and she whirled around to face Steve, who looked like he’d been hit in the face, and tried to patch up what she’d done. “No, no, Steve, please, that’s not what I meant, it was just, at the meeting with Fury, while you were in with him, Bucky just… I didn’t mean, you’re not a bad friend to him,” she said. Steve looked away as he shut the door behind her.  
“It’s fine,” he said quietly. “Maybe he needs someone other than me right now.”  
“Oh, Steve, I’m sorry,” Natasha said.  
“So you took him for spaghetti, huh?” Steve asked and Natasha bit her lip and nodded.  
“He, um, he actually called me,” she said. “And asked if I’d like to go try it with him.” Steve pondered this for a quiet moment.  
“Was he happy?” Steve asked. “He sounded…” And Steve left it there because he wasn’t able to describe exactly how Bucky had sounded.  
“Well, you know,” Natasha replied. “He wasn’t a happy-go-lucky ray of sunshine, but yeah, he was coming out of his shell a little. He seemed comfortable.” Steve nodded and took a deep breath and, cramming his hands in his pockets, pushed past Natasha and out into the living room, where he stopped in the wide space and stared out.  
It was hard with Steve sometimes, Natasha knew, because he didn’t like to advertise his pain. He kept very private and liked to put on a happy face so others wouldn’t worry about him. He was selfless like that. But Natasha did worry, and she worried about what damage she could be doing him by telling him that Bucky had been more comfortable with her.  
“I’m really happy for him,” Steve said quietly and truly, he was. He just wished they could be happy together.  
“How about this,” Natasha suggested, stepping closer to Steve and looking up at him from behind. “The next time we can get ahold of Bucky, we’ll plan something and we’ll all go. Maybe he’ll feel more comfortable, maybe he’ll loosen up then.” Steve turned to the side and she could see his profile and he was trying to breath steadily. He pursed his lips and nodded, putting his hands on his waist. He glanced over at her.  
“Do you honestly think that will work?” he asked. “Are you trying to be nice or do you seriously think this will give us some progress?”  
“It’s worth a try,” Natasha said.  
“What if we overwhelm him?” Steve asked.  
“We won’t,” she replied. “But if he’s panicking, we’ll back off and give him space. It’ll be okay, Steve.”  
“How do you know?” Steve asked.  
“Because it can’t be like this forever,” Natasha said.  
After a long time, Steve spoke again.  
“You’re brave,” he said quietly. “Bucky put bullets through you.” She sighed and gave a small half-shrug.  
“I won’t say he’s not intimidating,” she admitted. “But I don’t look at him and see a man who’s ever going to do that again.”  
“What do you see when you look at him, then?” Steve asked and Natasha thought silently for a long time before giving an answer, though vague and roundabout as it might have been.  
“I trust him,” she said.


	31. Spy

Bucky hadn’t seen Steve or Natasha in weeks. It had been exactly eighteen days since Olive Garden and the phone call and he had just disappeared after that. They had both attempted to contact him, but Bucky had thrown himself into his Hydra hunt and ignored their calls. He knew he probably would have done so anyway, but he had a better excuse now other than his broken emotions. Something unusual was going on with the targets he interrogated.  
Directly after the last assassination in the stack, Bucky sat in his hotel room with the lights off and waited. He expected to see the man who picked the lock and entered his room silently, carrying a black bag, but the man didn’t expect him. The Winter Soldier was fast and before the intruder could set his bag down, Bucky had stood and grabbed his forearm tightly, whirling him around. The man gasped and tried to draw away, but Bucky held onto him tight.  
“You’re Fury’s man, yeah?” The Winter Soldier said. The man looked down at his captured forearm in fear and Bucky followed his eyes. He was using his left hand. Bucky rolled his eyes and switched hands and the man seemed to relax considerably. Part of Bucky wanted to laugh at him, but another part realized that the man had a reasonable fear. “Well, are you?”  
“Yeah,” the man said in a trembling voice. The Winter Soldier pulled the man closer to him, their noses inches apart, and glared.  
“Tell Fury to stop sending people into my room. He wants to give me something, he can put it at my front door like everyone else, okay?”  
“Sure,” the man said. “C-Can I go now?” The Winter Soldier gritted his teeth and pushed the man away.   
“One more thing before you go,” he added and the man hesitated. “Tell Fury to send another jet. I need to talk to him privately.”  
The next day, Bucky paced frustratedly in front of Fury’s desk in the middle of the grassy field, gritting his teeth. His fear was beginning to wash up on him like it had been for the past few weeks, a high tide of panic as he explained the weird problem he had been facing.  
“It’s like they’re all playing some sort of game with me. Every target I assassinate gives me a different name and a different country,” he growled.  
“Maybe we’re going about it wrong then,” Fury suggested and Bucky glared over at him, glossing over his fear with anger. He stopped pacing for a moment and stared down at his feet, sucking in breaths and rubbing his left hand behind his back, unable to keep completely still.  
“What do I do,” Bucky asked quietly.  
“You try a new tactic,” Fury said. “Follow the next target. Follow them for months if you have to, but just follow them. And watch.”  
Bucky thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, and he wasn’t a spy. He wasn’t often sent on missions like this. He was worried that it wouldn’t work. But if he had some sort of back-up...  
“I don’t want to bring anyone else into this,” Bucky muttered to himself and Fury heard.  
“I’m afraid everyone is already into this,” he said to Bucky. “This is Hydra, it isn’t entirely you. What are you thinking?” You don’t have to do it alone. Bucky rubbed his left hand.  
“I’m not a spy, sir,” Bucky said. “I’d appreciate some help.”  
Fury considered this for a moment.  
“I would suggest Black Widow,” he said. “Do you think you could work with her?” Bucky nodded silently. “I’ll brief her,” Fury said, his tone conclusive. “Is there anything else you need, Barnes?” Again silent and deep in thought, Bucky shook his head ‘no’ and was excused. He took the plane back, thinking now long and hard about working with Natasha.  
***  
That night, for no apparent reason, as Bucky was walking back to his hotel with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground, he was positively assaulted with memories, so much so that he had to sit down on the pavement and scoot himself up to the building beside him for something to put his back against as he held his head in his hands and remembered. Tears stung at his eyes. He saw his mother and his father. He saw trenches and gun smoke. He saw his reflection on the other side of a cryofreezing compartment. He saw Steve and penniless winters and a lot of time spent trying to nurse his best friend back into health.  
No, he didn’t see it all, by no means. But it was more and it was something and it was like his brain was healing from years of torment one piece at a time. He sat there most of the night, underneath a streetlight, his journal in his hands, staring and thinking and writing, using his right hand to rub wetness away from his bloodshot eyes.  
Steve really was sick all of the time, Bucky wrote. How could someone be sick so much? And I remember being scared all the time that I’d go to his house to check up on him and he’d be gone. I really loved him. Why can’t I love him now?  
I can’t believe I was ever one to protect people.  
My mother, it was my mother’s spaghetti. It was great, she made it by hand, we used to have Steve and his parents come over when I was really little and eat her spaghetti and that’s, oh wow, is that why I liked it in the end? Because I had a friend over when we had it. And I still like it.  
I guess I still ate it with a friend.  
Do I have no memories that aren’t somehow connected to Steve Rogers? We must have been conjoined at the hip. He was like a brother.  
I remember my street had a lamp like this one.  
Oh! I did like dancing! Maybe I should try that again sometime.  
What was my dad’s name?  
Did I like to read?  
What were my favorite hobbies?   
How long did I go to school?  
Oh! The Starks. I killed the Starks.   
Oh.   
Oh no.


	32. Relapse

The third time Natasha called, Bucky picked up the phone.  
“I talked to Fury,” Natasha said. She didn’t ask why Bucky had let the phone ring the first two times.  
“When do we start?” Bucky asked. He could hear her shuffling papers on the other end of the line.  
“The target is a, uh, hold on,” she stopped herself.  
“What?” Bucky asked.  
“Your line could be tapped,” she said. “Can we meet and talk about this in person?” Bucky frowned.  
“I guess,” he said.  
“You wanna take me on another date?” She said and he could hear the smile in her voice, but he wasn’t up for it tonight. He didn’t have the strength to try to be happy and normal and tease back, so he stayed quiet. He just didn’t know what to say. There was an awkward silence as Bucky chastised himself and Natasha cleared her throat. “I was kidding,” she said. “I didn’t mean to, uh-”  
“I know,” Bucky said and he wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t bring himself to. There was another pause and he hated himself. He wished he could explain to her that it wasn’t her fault, his stuntedness wasn’t her fault, there was really no one at the heart of the blame except for himself. “How about tomorrow night. Where are you staying, I’ll meet you there.”  
“I have an apartment across the road from Steve’s. I’ll wait for you out there,” she said.  
“Okay, thanks,” he replied and they exchanged quiet goodbyes and he hung up and berated himself for not being better. Why couldn’t he just get better?!  
There was a sharp rap on the door and Bucky looked up. He peered through the peephole cautiously to see a man in a suit, a man he recognized as one of the hotel staff. He opened the door and stared at him, waiting expectantly for the man to explain himself. The man fidgeted a little uncomfortably, clearly unnerved by Bucky.  
“The manager would like to see you, sir, if you’d follow me,” the man said, starting to back up. Bucky didn’t move.  
“What does he want,” Bucky asked.  
“It’s about your stay, sir,” the man replied.  
“What about it?” Bucky said. “I’ve made no disturbances.” He was beginning to feel worried.  
“You’ll have to discuss it with the manager, sir,” the man said and finally, Bucky stepped out of his doorway and shut the door behind him.  
“Fine,” he said. “Take me there.”  
The manager’s office was behind the check-in desk at the front and Bucky was left at the door. He let himself into the office and the manager looked up from behind his desk.  
“Hi!” he said cheerily. Bucky examined the room as he entered. It was small and white and there were no windows. He glanced down at the manager when he spoke, but other than that, he didn’t acknowledge the man at all. “You can have a seat,” the manager offered, pointing to a chair in front of his desk, but Bucky remained standing. The manager hesitated a second, clearly thrown by Bucky’s unfriendliness, but he carried on regardless. “Kay!” the man said in his overly cheerful voice. “Mr. Smalls, right? Jonathon Smalls?” Bucky nodded, as that was the name he had registered himself under. “How have you been enjoying your stay in DC?” Bucky could have laughed. It was like he was on vacation, here to see the Lincoln Memorial, not fighting for his life against a secret organization that wanted him captured.  
“It’s very nice,” Bucky said by way of brushing off the man’s question.  
“And what are you doing here?” The man kept going. “Here for work, to see the sights?” Bucky stared at him.   
“Is this small talk,” he asked distastefully. It was a bad day for Bucky, a day when he felt a little darker than normal and his first instinct was to use a torrent of Russian expletives every time he opened his mouth. He was tired and depressed and he wasn’t in a mood to pretend like he was okay. The manager stared back at him, stunned.  
“Well, yes, I suppose,” he responded. “But let’s cut right to the chase, shall we? The fact is, Mr. Smalls, is that this is not a long-term stay hotel. In fact, I might go as far as to say that this is a very short-term hotel. Most people stay here for only one night, in fact. It’s mostly for people who drive trucks and are only passing through. Now, uh, how long have you been here?”  
“I don’t know,” Bucky said.  
“You’ve been here for about a month, Mr. Smalls,” the manager said, beginning to look a little less cheery.  
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Bucky replied. “I pay for my room, I’m quiet, I don’t hardly make any disturbance at all-”  
“No, no, it’s not about that,” the manager said. “It’s not that you’ve been a bad guest, it’s just that our hotel isn’t typically one for long stays, that’s all. It’s a convenience motel, Mr. Smalls.” Bucky stared. He was being kicked out, and for no good reason at all! But no, wait, he could see it in the manager’s eyes, there was a reason. He shoved his gloved left hand in his pocket and glared at the floor. They didn’t like his coming and going in the night. They probably thought he was suspicious. And what with all the recent murders going on, well, assassinations he’d committed himself, that was true, but they had no evidence! Bucky gritted his teeth.  
“I’ll get my stuff,” he said.  
“We’ll give you a day, Mr. Smalls,” the manager said, but Bucky was already heading out of the office.  
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be gone in ten minutes,” he said, holding back a bit of a spiteful snarl, and slammed the door behind him. The frosted glass on the window in the man’s office door shattered with a loud cracking noise and Bucky whirled back around, alarmed. The manager sat in his desk, his face stunned as he stared at Bucky through the hole in his door. Bucky glanced down and realized he had used his left hand. Angrily muttering in Russian under his breath, Bucky stepped over the broken glass back into the manager’s room and pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket, counted to two hundred and threw the money down on the desk.  
“Sorry,” he grumbled and stalked away again.  
In his room, Bucky gathered up all his things and threw them haphazardly into his dufflebag. He wished he could have gotten in one more shower and a shave before he left, but he knew he didn’t have that kind of time now. Once he was absolutely certain there was nothing left in his room to incriminate him, Bucky threw his bag over his shoulder and left the hotel. The patrons and staff stopped and stared at him as he sulkily stalked out of the lobby and out onto the street, but he ignored them.  
That night, Bucky tried to sleep on a park bench, but he couldn’t quite get comfortable because, well, it is only a park bench, and he ended up sitting on it and leaning over awkwardly with his head in his hands and his eyes too heavy to keep open. The hours passed slowly. Presumably because it had been such a particularly difficult day for Bucky, whenever he did manage to slip into something like sleep, he saw Hydra. He did not necessarily see it in detail, or in any sort of form, but he felt the pain, severe pain, and several times, he started awake, jerking his head up or almost falling off the bench entirely and he was miserable. It was almost more than Bucky could bare.  
Morning came eventually, although Bucky remained if anything even more exhausted and raw than he had been the previous day after the torment of his long night. He didn’t know what to do now, he supposed he ought to find some place to live, but he felt no real drive, so he spent most of the day wandering, his bag over his shoulder, dead-eyed. He didn’t understand, it was like after having taken three steps forward, he slipped seven steps back. If he could go back in time and look, he would not be able to distinguish a difference between himself now and back when he had wandered away after having left Captain America soaking on the shore of the Potomac, except perhaps that he had now acquired a nice duffel bag with the initials ‘SR’ on the handle. Even his hair had grown back out since his last haircut when Fury had approached him and he let it fall in his face again, lacking the will to push it back or tie it up.  
He wandered that way, feeling empty, for the rest of the day until the sun began to set and he remembered that he had to meet Natasha outside of her apartment building. He walked there and sat out in front of it, his bag on the ground, his head in his hands, until he realized that Natasha might notice that there was something wrong and he didn’t want her worrying about him, so he thought he ought to attempt to look like he still had a roof and a bed to go back to.  
Bucky stood in front of a dark window in the building and peered at his own reflection. He needed to shave, he needed another hair cut. Without much real thought on the matter, Bucky dug around his duffel bag and found a small switchblade that he began to use to hack at his hair. He didn’t know if it would do any real good, but he wasn’t thinking about it, he wasn’t thinking about hardly anything at all, he moved methodically, pulling pieces of dark brown hair up from his scalp and sawing with his knife until he could throw down handful after handful of hair.  
“Bucky!” He heard behind him and saw in the reflection of the window Natasha Romanoff standing behind him with a shocked expression on her face. “What… What are you doing?” He looked over at his own reflection, where he looked hollow and his hair was hacked at and uneven and back down to his hands, the knife he held, knicks in his right hand where he had pulled the blade too fast, the pile of brown hair at his feet, and didn’t know what to say.  
“I guess I’m, uh, I’m cutting my hair,” he said. Was that in Russian? He wasn’t sure, he hadn’t meant to speak in Russian, but he figured it didn’t matter. Natasha approached him slowly, carefully, and took the knife away from him, tossing it to the ground a few good, safe feet away and turning him to face her.  
“You look awful,” she breathed, and not in English. He didn’t answer. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” He shook his head.  
“I got kicked out of my hotel,” he said. “But I just…,” He looked down at his hands. They were shaking violently and his right hand was turning red. “I was getting-” better. “I-I don’t-” understand what went wrong, why I feel so dead.  
“You need to sit down,” Natasha said. “Come on, come into my room, we’ll call Steve, you can talk about it, we’ll get you cleaned up.” Normally, Bucky knew he would object to seeing Steve, but he didn’t have the strength, so he let her grab his duffle bag for him and lead him gently up the stairs and into her apartment, where she laid him down on her couch and left the room. He stared at the ceiling and heard her muffled voice on the phone in the other room.  
“No, he’s not… No, I agree, but I just think you should mumble mumble mumble. … Okay, but be gentle, he’s mumble mumble… Hurry.” Natasha hung up the phone and Bucky focused on his breathing and she came back into the room and sat with him and he let her smooth his hair back and he thought she asked him what was wrong, told him that he could talk to her, but he didn’t answer. Or, he thought he didn’t answer, things were blurring, he couldn’t be sure. Then Steve was there and Bucky was beginning to fall asleep again, but after the previous night, all he could think about was Hydra and cryofreezing and murder and amputations and falling and he fought sleep as hard as he could.  
He didn’t think he was talking, but he guessed he was, because out of the blur in his mind, he could hear Steve talking under his breath to Natasha.  
“What is he saying? I can’t understand, what’s wrong?”  
“It’s Russian, like earlier. It’s mostly mumbles.”  
“Is he sick? Is he drugged?”  
“I think it’s just a relapse, some sort of panic attack. He said he got kicked out of his hotel, he was probably panicking.”  
“What do we do?”  
“He needs sleep, let’s just wait.”  
“What if he’s dying??”  
“He’s not dying, look, I even patched up his hand, he’ll be-”  
“Don’t tell me he’ll be okay.”  
“Steve-”  
“Don’t tell me he’ll be okay, Natasha!! Don’t tell-” And Bucky faded out again, back into dark cells and empty years and he felt something running down his face, was it blood, was it tears, was it even real? His throat felt raw. Was he screaming? Was it English? What year was it, where was he, why did he even exist, he felt empty, he felt…  
Oh, he felt like… If only he could just go. Run. And jump.


	33. Relate

Eventually, Bucky fell into sleep, although it wasn’t without the haunting images of Hydra. When he woke up, there was daylight outside. He had been covered in blankets and comforters of all kinds, but had evidently kicked them off in his fitful sleep. Part of him wanted to grab them all and cover himself back up, but he didn’t want to go back to sleep and he could hear Steve and Natasha in the other room, quietly talking to each other. He stood slowly and carefully, as not to make much noise, and pushed himself off the bed. His right hand sang with pain and he looked down to see that it was bandaged. Bucky remembered his haircutting experience and reached up to touch his head, trying to feel how hacked it was. He couldn’t see, but it felt pretty bad and he groaned. He’d have to go back to another barber shop, try to get it fixed. He wondered how closely he’d have to crop it. At least it’s not in my eyes anymore, he thought with a sort of dark, miserable version of optimism and he couldn’t quite make himself smile.  
Bucky hesitated in front of the door. He could hear Natasha and Steve’s mumbled words through it. Bucky pressed his ear against the door and listened. For a while, they talked about things of no real interest and it was clear that they were both distracted. There was a long silence.  
"It’s like I did this to him myself," Steve said with a hollow laugh. Of course, they were talking about him.  
"Don’t be ridiculous," Natasha said gently. "Don’t do this to yourself, Steve." Steve was silent.  
Bucky looked down and sucked in a breath, pulling himself away from the door a little. He didn’t know how to feel. He knew Steve blamed himself, he wanted to make Steve stop and a piece of him amidst the shards that made him up on the inside wanted to yell at him and be angry because how come Steve couldn’t see that Bucky was trying so hard not to let himself fall apart? How could he take all the blame for decades when he slept? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair to Steve and it wasn’t fair to Bucky. There’s already been so much pain, Bucky thought. Don’t sit there and make more of it because you feel bad. Don’t… Just be happy, for me.  
If anything, if anything at all, Steve Rogers deserved to be happy and Bucky knew that.  
Bucky didn’t know if he wanted the barrage of words and questions with no answers that he would face when he opened the door, but drawing his strength from some quickly drying well inside of him, he pulled it open and stood there under the frame, listening as Steve’s words died in the air and two heads turned to stare at him.  
“Bucky, you’re awake,” Steve said. He stood up and tried to approach him, but Bucky found himself taking a step back for every step that Steve took forward and Steve halted. “Are you… How do you feel?” Bucky didn’t answer. He looked away and shrugged. He wanted to know how bad his hair looked. He remembered Steve saying Bucky's appearance used to give him confidence. He didn’t feel confident now. "Are you hungry? We made lunch," Steve added gently.  
"How long was I asleep?" Bucky asked. He knew he often avoided questions, even little ones, like lunch. He was just finding more and more that he was uncomfortable with small talk.  
“A good fourteen hours or so,” Natasha said. “It’s one in the afternoon now.” Bucky looked at the ground and nodded.  
“I’m-” sorry. He stopped himself, he didn’t go further and the silence that followed seemed to finish the sentiment for him. “We were going to, we were supposed to get started on the mission, but I-” He stopped himself again, but this time because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.  
“What mission?” Steve said and Bucky realized with a settling of the pain over him that he hadn’t wanted Steve to know. “Who’s sending you on any missions?” There was another silence and Bucky refused to meet Steve’s eye. Natasha pursed her lips together.  
“Don’t worry about it, Bucky, you’re in no shape to worry about it, we’ll deal with it later,” she said quietly.  
“I want to know what mission Fury’s sending you on,” Steve said. He was beginning to sound angry. Bucky looked up at him, feeling hollowed out, and decided to come clean. He wanted to apologize. He didn’t want to put this on Steve.  
“I just wanted the attacks to stop,” he said quietly. “They weren’t, they wouldn’t stop chasing me, I was, I was, it was like-” hell. Again. “They were going to catch me again eventually. So I… Talked to Fury. Got some back-up. I’m trying to stop them now.” Bucky realized as he said the words, his voice dead and his face empty that he didn’t sound like he could stop anything. Steve stared at Bucky for a very long time. He looked as though he was putting pieces together and it was killing him.  
“Your cheek,” he said.  
“They were ganging up on me,” Bucky said.  
“Why didn’t you tell me,” Steve said and he sounded so… He sounded betrayed. His voice was hurt. He wasn’t hardly asking the question, he was just putting the words out there, in the air, like he couldn’t bare to have them inside of him. Bucky swallowed as he stared at Natasha’s carpet. This was the last thing he had wanted for Steve.  
“I was trying to, to-” protect you! “I-I wanted to… Spare you-”  
“Spare me?! Spare me,” Steve cried loudly, cutting Bucky off. He laughed and Bucky closed his eyes. Steve rubbed his face with his hands. “Spare me,” he said to himself quietly, as though he couldn’t believe it. “You… You are getting attacked and… You wanted to spare me. Spare me what, Bucky?” Bucky squeezed his eyes shut tighter. He rubbed his eyes with his hand. He wanted to get out of there. He had never wanted anything like this. It was all his fault, he’d said something, he’d scared Steve now, Steve would be afraid for him, would worry about him, when what Steve needed to do was leave him and never turn back. But, Bucky realized, he wasn’t letting him. Bucky clung to Steve, even as he pushed him away. Why do I do this, he chastised himself in his head. I deserved… I deserved… All of it.  
During the silence, Natasha had stood now. She approached Bucky and Bucky let her lead him out into the open room and sit him down in a chair, her hands on his shoulders, her face blank and her mouth a straight line. Natasha didn’t deserve this either, this finding him on the street half-insane, this feeling of responsibility she seemed to have for him, the way she took him in, she didn’t deserve it like Steve didn’t deserve it.  
“Go get your electric razor, Steve,” she said and although Steve looked as though he wanted to argue, but he left her apartment slowly and silently. While he was gone, Natasha ran her hands through Bucky’s hair and pulled gently at parts, getting out a comb and trying to see exactly how short he had cut it in several places. Bucky sat motionless, appreciating being handled gently, like he mattered, and he knew he shouldn’t want her touching him because he didn’t deserve that. But he couldn’t get up the will to fight her.  
“Relapses just happen sometimes, Bucky,” she said quietly. Bucky nodded.  
“I thought I was…,” he said. “I thought I was getting better.”  
“You are,” she replied. “But there are going to be road bumps, there are going to be setbacks.”  
It was a while before Bucky could respond.  
“I don’t know if I can do it,” he said. Natasha sighed and put her comb down.  
“That’s why we’re here,” she replied after a time. “We’ll help you.”  
“You can’t help me,” he said, like a knee-jerk reaction, and she sighed.  
“You have to let yourself be loved, Bucky,” she asked and that was when Bucky realized that they really could relate to one another. He just wished it could be over breadsticks and strawberries, not… This.


	34. Blame

Steve returned soon with his electric razor, just like Natasha had asked for. She plugged it into the wall and didn’t even bother laying a mat down on the floor before she began to cut Bucky’s hair. He heard the buzzing close to his ear and felt the blade move up and down his neck. He wanted to ask how short it would be, he wanted to tell her that he didn’t want to look like he did in the forties, but he couldn’t gather up the strength, so he stayed quiet and let her cut his hair, just grateful that she was there to be so tender with him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Steve.  
During his haircut, a fact occurred to Bucky to say and before he knew it, before he even knew he had the will to speak, he had said it.  
“I killed the Starks,” he said, loud enough to be heard above the buzzing of the razor and Steve looked up sharply and Natasha’s hand jerked and she pulled the razor’s cord out of the outlet on accident and it was silent and everyone was staring at him. He stared down at his hands and looked at his left one. It didn’t have a glove on it anymore. He didn’t know what he’d done with his glove, he’d had it just yesterday. His hand shined, reflected the light. He didn’t quite like that. He never did. “I staged their car accident. And then I let their son rebuild my arm.” He looked up now at Steve as though to say, there, now you can’t have any more faith in me. I am the worst of the worst, I’m worse than any criminal you might have fought before because I dug my way into your heart somehow and now I’m just there, hurting you. I even managed to hurt Tony. Please, someone, stop me. Bucky didn’t even know how to apologize. “I realized it the other day. I hadn’t… I hadn’t really… Put it together before.”  
“Is that what this is all about, Bucky?” Natasha asked. Bucky shrugged. Steve put his face in his hands. Bucky felt there was more to say, but he didn't want to talk anymore. He ran a hand over the back of his head, self-conscious of his hair, and stood.   
"I'll go now," he said.   
"No, Bucky, sit down," Natasha said and he thought she sounded strained. He didn't move. He wanted her to throw him out. Steve stood as well and his face was red.  
"I'll be back in a minute," he said and Natasha and Bucky watched him leave the room.  
"Sit down," Natasha said again and Bucky gave in, collapsing into the chair. He realized that he didn't know how to apologize because there was literally no way in which he could fix with words what had already been done. There was no apology big enough.  
Natasha plugged the razor back into the wall and turned it back on.  
"Why are you doing this," Bucky said.  
"Because your hair is a mess,” Natasha said. Bucky pulled away from her a little and turned in his chair to face her. She turned off the blade and waited, ready to listen to him and he didn’t know why she was.  
“Why are you doing this for me, Natasha?” Bucky asked, his voice low. “I don’t deserve this.”  
“Says who,” Natasha asked and Bucky scoffed.  
“Says, says the hundreds of innocents I’ve killed?” He said. “Says Tony’s parents.” She stared at him.  
“You know in your heart that you aren’t truly to blame for that,” she said. Bucky stared back now.  
“Then why do I feel so guilty,” he replied. She looked into his eyes and sucked in a breath.  
“Just let me finish your hair,” she said and he obediently turned back around.  
A half an hour or so later, Natasha declared him a masterpiece and led him by the arm, the left arm in fact, to the bathroom mirror where he could see. He stared at his face in the mirror, skin grey like he was ill and eyes hollow. Natasha had cut his hair short on the sides, almost weirdly short, like he wasn’t used to seeing it, but the top was still a little longer and she had parted it down the side and some pieces fell over his forehead and he had to admit, it did look better. He looked cleaner and it was like a breath of relief passed through him. He ran his hands through it, both of his hands, and let it fall like she had set it. He looked to her with grateful eyes.  
“Thank you,” he said.  
“What are friends for,” she replied and offered him her signature half-smile in the mirror. He tried to give her a half-smile back and he didn’t quite know how successful he was, but it was a smile if anything and she laughed a little and looked down.  
“Will Steve be okay?” Bucky asked as he stared at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t entirely sure who he aimed the question at, whether he was talking to Natasha or simply asking it of himself, but she answered.  
“Give him time,” she said. Bucky nodded and watched his own chest rise and deflate as he sighed. “He doesn’t blame you, Bucky,” she added.  
“How do you know?” He asked. She looked at him in the mirror and raised her eyebrows.  
“I know Steve,” she said. “And he doesn’t blame you for any of this.”  
“He should,” Bucky replied.  
“Don’t tell yourself that,” Natasha scolded. “You’re wrong.”  
“And how do you know that too?” Bucky asked, not in any way accusatory, but with a genuine simplicity, a search for answers. He wanted her to give him the secret to forgiving himself. “How do you know I’m not to blame?”  
“It took me years to learn it,” Natasha said. “But neither of us are, Bucky. Not really. You less so than me. You can’t blame yourself when they shape you into a tool.” Bucky nodded because he wanted to believe that she was right. He supposed that it would take years for him to truly learn that, too, and he hoped he would. He wanted to be able to live with himself.


	35. Apartment

Steve returned soon after Bucky and Natasha had gotten out a vacuum and cleaned up his hair from off the floor. Steve’s eyes were no longer red. Bucky wondered if he shouldn’t have kept the fact that he killed the Starks to himself, even though it had seemed to burst out of him of it’s own accord. If he had to say something at all, and he knew he did, he wished he could have told Steve gentler.  
Bucky wondered how long Steve could continue to remind himself that he didn’t want to blame Bucky. Bucky wondered how much malice Steve had felt towards him before he reminded himself again that Bucky had been a tool. Steve seemed to be avoiding his eyes now. He wanted to approach him and apologize, but he didn’t know how Steve would respond.  
“Steve,” Natasha said. He looked at her. “Are you okay?” He took a deep breath and nodded.  
“Sorry Buck,” he said, finally meeting Bucky’s eyes for a moment. “You caught me off-guard.” Bucky shook his head slowly.  
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”  
Bucky realized that this was as close had he had come to truly apologizing or even articulating his most painful thoughts in a coherent sentence in a very long time. It wasn’t everything he wanted to say, but it was something. He couldn’t feel proud of himself, though. It was a milestone he wanted to just take in-stride. And besides, he had too much to blame himself for to ever feel pride in himself. But maybe now, Bucky thought, he could finally share with Steve the things he had wanted to say.  
Steve was shaking his head now. Please just say okay, Steve, Bucky thought. Or say it’s not okay, just say something.  
“Lets try to finish lunch now,” Steve said.  
Lunch had been sandwiches with ham, but Natasha’s white bread must have gone a little stale because they didn’t taste very good and Bucky could tell that Steve had noticed earlier but had said nothing by how much mayonnaise was inside of his sandwich. Bucky choked his down out of politeness instead of a real hunger.  
“It’s just not fair,” Steve said loudly in the middle of their quiet meal, throwing his sandwich down and Bucky at first thought he meant it wasn’t fair that the bread was so stale, but he came to realize that Steve was talking about him. He was suddenly unable to swallow. “What did we do to deserve this?” Steve cried. “Is it too much to ask that no one gets hurt for once?”  
Before he understood what Steve really meant, Bucky felt like he had been hit. He knew it wasn’t fair to Steve and Natasha and they didn’t deserve it and Bucky had never wanted to hurt anyone, but he had and inside his own mind the knowledge was painful, but coming out of Steve’s mouth, it was so, so much worse.   
Don’t blame me, please Steve, I can’t add the weight of your blame to everything else.  
There was a long silence and Steve put his head in his hands again. Then, Steve continued and Bucky wondered with a glint of miserable hope if he hadn’t misinterpreted Steve’s words.  
“Life was never fair to you, Buck,” Steve said. Bucky stared at him. Fair to him? It wasn’t fair to Howard and Maria Stark. It wasn’t fair to Steve. He had to deal with a broken Bucky now, he had to deal with all of Bucky’s actions and all of his countless murders and Bucky had to deal with them, too, but he expected that. Steve never asked for any of this.  
He wanted to leave Steve and he often told himself that all he wanted was Steve to be happy, but he realized that wasn't true. In the end, in his deepest heart, all Bucky wanted was for Steve to love him again and tell him they could be friends again and everything would be fine and that desire was destroying Steve. Bucky was destroying Steve.  
He didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t.  
When lunch was over, Natasha suggested they find Bucky a new place to live.  
“He can get an apartment here,” Steve said as though it were simple. “Or in my building.”  
“I don’t think I could do that,” Bucky replied. In his head, he replayed his accusation over and over again. I am destroying Steve.  
“Why not?” Steve said. “It’s close, Natasha and I could help watch your back in case anyone jumps you again.”  
“I have to lay lower,” Bucky said. “They’re probably all waiting for me to get an apartment right next to you.” And besides, it looked expensive there and Fury didn’t pay him that much. Bucky felt the urge to pull away like he so often found himself doing, pull away and run from the discomfort he felt.  
“Then you can close the blinds,” Steve suggested. “Use a different name.”  
“I do, and they still find me,” Bucky said. “I need to hide.”  
“No,” Steve said and he was beginning to sound determined. “I don’t want you disappearing again, not telling me things. Let me back you up.”  
“It might be nice to have you closer,” Natasha said and Bucky looked at her, surprised. He had expected her to agree with him.  
“Do you think it would be safe?” Bucky asked. After all, she was the spy, she was his partner, he felt inclined to take her suggestion.  
“Yes, actually,” Natasha said and looked over at Steve. “Instead of them finding you in some crummy hotel out in the middle of nowhere and ganging up on you again, they’d have to get through Captain America and Black Widow to even touch you.” She looked back over at him. “And we won’t let them touch you.” Bucky considered Natasha’s thoughts. He supposed she had a point.   
“Alright, I’ll stay here,” Bucky agreed hesitantly, rubbing his left hand. But Steve, I can’t watch my brokenness ruin you. I just can’t.


	36. Missing

Bucky’s new apartment was right next to Natasha’s, since they decided it might be a little bit more prudent and besides, Steve had neighbors on either side already. The apartment was spacious and of a similar layout to Natasha’s and he actually really, really loved it. It was different, being able to spread out and be comfortable. To have so many big, beautiful windows and a furnished sitting room to himself. It had almost been difficult getting the apartment because Bucky had needed more papers and records than the hotels had wanted and all the records on him either said he had died or were in the possession of Hydra and Steve had apparently had to pull some strings. But eventually, all of the paperwork was sorted and Bucky was left with a real, permanent home of his own.   
He didn’t have that many things to spread out around the apartment. He folded up his clothes in the drawers and set his duffel bag in the closet and put his journal on his bedside table and realized that that basically concluded all that he owned. He wasn’t necessarily sure if he needed anything else, though. He felt content.  
Natasha spent a lot of time with him in his apartment. He still liked taking walks, although his nightmares had gotten significantly better and he found that he could sleep quietly through the night most of the time, and he often returned from one of his walks to find Natasha in his apartment, flipping through the TV in his sitting room or napping on his couch. He was certain that she awoke the minute he entered the room, but he still took the time to pull a blanket over her shoulders carefully and she still kept her eyes closed as though she didn’t know that he took special care to make sure not to touch her bare shoulder with his metal hand. He had noticed that she was slowly and casually transferring home-y items from her apartment to his, too, like plastic dishes to use in the kitchen and extra blankets for his bed and nice shampoo for the shower. At first, when he found her things there, he brought them back to her immediately, but she insisted he keep them, and although he felt a little bad and he didn’t want to take hand-outs, she assured him that they were gifts and she would be offended if he didn’t accept them. Gradually, they fell into a comfortable position of her leaving the items there and him silently, but not ungratefully, accepting them into his apartment and using them all. He especially liked to use the things she left him while in her presence, to let her know how much he appreciated them.  
Steve visited less often and Bucky wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe because he didn’t feel as comfortable as Natasha did with invading Bucky’s space and that disappointed him a little. Natasha had wedged her way into Bucky’s life with a smile and an undeniable confidence and Bucky had made room for her all too easily. Bucky almost considered once that it was because she was already a part of his life, that maybe in some forgotten memory, Natasha was there, at first slowly integrating herself into him and then becoming such a comfortable part of him that he became hyper-aware of her absence when she wasn’t there and it was only natural now to come home to find her in his kitchen, replacing the dishes he’d been too tired to clean the night before. But he dismissed the thought, unsure of where Natasha could have fit in his past and certain that it was only a wild, wishful passing thought in the mind of a man who couldn’t remember much beyond his own name.  
Regardless, although he had Natasha and she was wonderful and brilliant and he couldn’t ask for more, Bucky had begun to silently miss Steve.


	37. Visit

Bucky appreciated Natasha’s frequent and unannounced visits immensely. He found he felt better with people around, especially when those people were Natasha. He wished Steve would come back, but maybe it was for the best or maybe Steve needed time and Bucky didn’t want to intrude. Steve was smart to keep his distance, however much Bucky might secretly want him back.  
That day, however, Natasha had not been over even once and Bucky wondered if maybe he should visit her for a change. Natasha usually picked his locks and he would be the first to admit that he was not the world’s best lock-picker, but in order to possibly surprise and delight Natasha, he would do his best.  
Bucky knelt before her front door and began carefully turning the tumblers, listening closely. He failed many times, but refused to get frustrated, and was on his fifth try when he heard the lock click all by itself and he jumped back and the door opened and Natasha was looking down at him, sitting on the floor, holding the door open. Something was wrong. Her eyes were red, her shoulders seemed to slump forward some. As Bucky sat on the floor and stared back up at her, she grinned and laughed and made some joking, teasing comment that he didn’t hear because he was too acutely aware of the fact that something was quite off with Natasha Romanoff. She reached forward and offered him her hand and he took it and she hauled him up and ushered him inside.  
Bucky watched Natasha straighten her shoulders and smile wider and laugh louder, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from being bloodshot. Bucky stared at her and didn’t respond to the things she was saying. Eventually, she simply stared back and fell silent. She seemed to be searching his face.  
What is wrong, Natasha, he wanted to ask but the silence was too heavy and thick and her shoulders began to slump a little more until he reached out and caught her, aware that she hadn’t been falling, not really, not on the outside, but she folded into his arms and put her head on his shoulder.  
They stood like that for a long time, but Bucky never really felt awkward or uncomfortable. He just kept squeezing her, gently, with his right arm mostly, and stroking her hair and trying to comfort her. He felt alarmed, because he wasn’t sure what was wrong and maybe it was something big, but he had to trust that Natasha would tell him in time.  
After a while, he felt her shoulders begin to shake, although she bravely held back tears, he hugged her closer and whispered ‘shh’ and she began sobbing. Ever more alarmed, Bucky let her cry into his jacket sleeve.  
“Natasha,” Bucky whispered into her ear. “Natasha, what is it?” Natasha pulled back a little to look into his face and her entire face was red and swollen and wet with tears. She put a hand on his cheek, which surprised him because the touch seemed almost intimate, his cheek cupped in her palm. He turned his head into her hand ever so slightly, but he didn’t notice that he did. Natasha’s bottom lip quivered. She answered in Russian.  
“Nothing,” she said.  
“That’s a lie,” he replied and she nodded. She moved her hand slowly up the side of his face and into his hair and Bucky couldn’t help but feel a little confused, although he had to admit he wasn’t going to stop her.  
“I’ve always been a great liar,” she said. “Guess nothing gets past you, Winter Soldier, am I right?” Bucky wasn’t sure what to say in response as suddenly the name seemed to jump down his throat and slash at his stomach, piercing his heart along the way. He hadn’t been prepared, it had been a cruel thing to say, and he stiffened and pulled away a little. She noticed and stepped back from his arms, taking her hand back from his face and hair. She wiped at her own face. “You’re a good man, Bucky,” she said.  
“I’m really not,” Bucky replied, but this wasn’t about him. He changed the subject. “Are you going to tell me who made you cry?” Natasha smiled at him and laughed. She switched back to English and Bucky knew he wasn’t going to hear anything else about it.  
“Thank you,” she said. “I feel better now.”  
“Did something happen?” Bucky asked. Natasha stared at him, her arms folded across her stomach, and shook her head. “Okay,” Bucky replied, staring at her, concerned, and began to back towards the door, as Natasha seemed to want him to do. Ordinarily, he would have insisted she tell him what was wrong, but calling him… that had thrown him off. And he felt distinctly unwelcome. “I’ll see you later?”   
“Not if I see you first,” she grinned.  
“That’s cliche,” Bucky said and the corners of his mouth turned up just a little.  
“Bye, Bucky,” Natasha said and Bucky excused himself and shut the door behind him and stared at it for along time, thinking with great confusion about what had just happened.


	38. ---

“The procedure has already begun.”  
Serum. He remembered a serum, he remembered needles and yelling. But the memory was painful, he was in pain, he stopped thinking about it. How long ago were the needles and the yelling. He didn’t know.  
He faded in and out of consciousness, panicked, confused and horrified. The needles stopped mattering. The pain, searing, blinding, in his left side, left him hoarse and breathless from screams. They let him scream until he blacked out and scream again when he woke. He could feel his flesh burning, there was metal, he could smell his own burned skin and his stomach heaved, but there was nothing for him to throw up and he ended up choking and gasping. There were hands on his chest and his right shoulder again, someone put a hand on his forehead and held his head down. His vision left him and came back again. His left arm and shoulder, what he could feel of what was left of it, was all white-hot pain.  
When he came back and the murmurs in a language he didn’t understand grew louder, his left shoulder was numb. He felt ill. He felt weak. He glanced down over at his left side, moving his head as far as he could because he had been strapped down tightly, painfully tightly, with leather straps across his chest and forehead. He saw through the blurs his vision had become, silver and gleaming metal. He stared, trying to make sense of it. It didn’t make sense. He felt weak. He felt ill.  
He felt a certain, different kind of fear that he wasn’t able to pinpoint or articulate at the time. It was a deep fear, down in his heart, settling in the depths of the way his stomach turned. He didn’t know what to call it. He feared for himself. There was a face he wanted to remember, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, there was a wall, like a burning, like everything he wanted to see was burned away at the edges and all that was left was black. The fear in his heart screamed at the black for the face that had been burned away from him.   
He can’t save me this time. I can’t save him.  
Then a hand grabbed his left shoulder, roughly, shook it, and he screamed shrilly and everything, everything went black and he slumped down, still again.


	39. Cookies

Bucky had mostly gotten over his initial repulsion about his arm. He had accepted it’s necessity when Tony had fixed it for him, and after all, he had lived with it for many years. But he still couldn’t help but look at it sometimes and feel a little monstrous and a little less than human. If he thought about it too hard, it made his stomach flip. People who loved him, namely Natasha and Steve, went out of their way to make sure he knew that they were comfortable with his bionic arm. Both of them stood on his left side purposefully or touched his left shoulder. They didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Bucky wondered if on the inside, it sickened them as much as it sickened him sometimes.  
Bucky stood in front of his mirror that day and inspected his arm. The shadow of where the star used to be before Bruce scrubbed it off had long since faded and all that was left now was clean, shiny metal. He turned his shoulder and stared at it and in his head, he envisioned a more red white and blue symbol. He didn’t know if Steve would want anything having to do with his shield on Bucky’s arm, though. Standing in close proximity to or touching his arm was one thing. Bucky would understand if Steve didn’t want the new star painted with his shield in mind, but he figured he would ask anyway. It might be nice. It would be a powerful message to Hydra, anyway.  
Bucky stared at his arm and remembered his nightmares, which had consisted solely of amputations without sedatives and shiny, cold metal in an underground Hydra base. Luckily, he must have been silent because he didn’t feel as though he had been screaming and no one had said anything. He still felt shaken, however, and frequently throughout the day had to pull himself out of deep, dark thoughts that consumed him, or else pinch himself to remind him that he was in the present and he was away and he was getting better.  
He sort of wanted to talk to someone about it, but he didn’t want to burden Natasha or Steve. He didn’t think he could bare to see the heartbreak in either of their faces, so he wrote about it in his journal, but even then, it wasn’t quite enough. He felt as though he wanted to be held, or at least given some sort of human confirmation that he was O.K.  
On a whim, Bucky returned to the bathroom and stripped off his shirt. He reached for the switch on the back of his shoulder and felt the sudden disconnection as his whole arm fell limp. He took it off and set it down on the bathroom counter and refused to look at it. He used only his right arm to pull his shirt back on. He felt okay, he decided, but he just didn’t want it right now. He turned around and left the bathroom immediately with plans to sleep or else write, but instead, he discovered Natasha in his bedroom, peering out of his window. She turned around as he entered the room and smiled at him and although he normally he felt a certain level of relief at seeing her, he felt a little embarrassed now. He had been so lonely before and he was glad that she was there, but he wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to have to see her face him without an arm. It seemed particularly vulnerable, he felt naked. He didn’t know if he could explain to her why he hadn’t wanted to wear his left arm right then.  
“Hey, how are you?” She asked and he watched her eyes take him in--empty sleeve and all. There were a few boxes of cookies on his bedside table that hadn’t been there before and didn’t go unnoticed by Bucky. He walked over and picked up the top one, tearing off the cardboard lid with his teeth and pulling the box out, even though he didn’t really want to eat right now. During his time at Stark Tower, he had become surprisingly adept at using only his right hand and part of him was a little embarrassed about that, too.  
“What are these?” he asked.  
“Thin mints,” Natasha said. She said nothing about his arm, which he was surprised to find that he resented. He wanted her to recognize it, not in a pitying way, necessarily, but if only in a neutral comment, so he could feel out what she was thinking. Now it felt like an elephant in the room. If he didn’t say anything, he’d feel uncomfortable, but he didn’t know what to say. “Didn’t have those when you were a kid, Grandpa?” She teased. He bit into one and shrugged.  
“We had stuff like it,” he said somewhat dismissively. She smirked at him and reached across the bed to snatch the box from him. He let her take it.  
“Fine, Mr. Hipster. You liked thin mints before they were cool, am I right?” She said, putting one between her teeth. Bucky really wanted to tease her back, but he seemed to be lacking the strength. He gave her a weak smile and sat down on his bed. “Is your arm okay?” There it was, like a small breath of relief. She didn’t sound repulsed, just… Concerned. She didn’t seem to care that he hadn’t even pinned up his left sleeve. She was so comfortable with every piece of him and the closeness was refreshing and comforting. He nodded his head in response.  
“Weren’t we going to start working on our mission?” He asked. His arm had been mentioned. They could change the subject now.  
“Yeah, like, a week ago. In case you don’t remember, we had technical difficulties,” Natasha said. She slid across the bed behind him to meet him, crunching her thin mints, hovering over his shoulder. He looked up at her, craning his neck. “Why? You feel up to it?” Bucky glanced down and although his left hand wasn’t there, it was as though he could still see it and feel it. He became hyper-aware of it’s presence just one wall over. Tony and Bruce had been right, it was an impressive, and deadly, piece of machinery. It reminded him of himself at his very core, he realized and his stomach took a sickening pitfall. He wet his lips nervously and nodded. Natasha stared at him. “Buck, we can put it off if you--”  
“No, no, we can’t,” Bucky said quickly. “Ready or not, Hydra’s… Hydra’s there and it’s still a threat. I can work on being ready later.” Natasha leaned back on his pillows and he stared at his only hand and she stopped chewing her cookie. They sat there for a minute.  
“You sort of blow me away sometimes, Bucky,” Natasha said and it took nearly a day for her words to really sink in for Bucky and when they finally did, he was so elated by them that he could have done cartwheels.


	40. Before

“Natasha, I just don’t understand,” Steve said.  
“Understand what,” Natasha asked, propping her feet up on Steve’s coffee table and flipping through a magazine she’d brought with her. Steve nudged her feet as he walked past and she put them back down again.  
“I don’t, I don’t get you and Bucky,” Steve admitted. Natasha glanced up over the top of her magazine. Her eyes were questioning.  
“Can’t a girl help out a friend in need?” she asked innocently. Steve’s expression grew hard.  
“You’re practically flirting with him,” he accused. “I’m not blind, I’ve seen it. And he nearly flirts back, is there something I’m missing here??” Natasha’s eyes became unreadable and she looked back down. “You accepted him almost immediately! Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s weird,” he said.  
“We’ve talked about this, Steve,” Natasha started to say, but Steve cut her off.  
“No, no, no,” he said. “I know we talked about it. But you weren’t completely honest, were you? I’ve never seen you be so open to anyone so fast. Half the time, you’re not even yourself with me! What is it, Natasha, I’m missing a piece of the story here.”  
Natasha threw down her magazine exhaustedly and glanced up at Steve. She took a long breath and looked away from him for a moment.  
“Oh, Steve, I don’t want to… I don’t want to hurt you,” she said and before she could say more, Steve was in her face and he was angry and it reminded her of the last time they spoke about what she knew about Bucky, Steve in her face and mad and her trying not to say more than was necessary.  
Steve backed off for a minute. He was gritting his teeth. She had to say something, Steve was suspicious now and he was suffering. She had to share something with him, even the bare minimum, if just to let him know he wasn’t alone, to tell him that she had a reason.  
“I knew him, okay? Before?” Natasha said, her voice too high and too fast and Steve stared at the ground. “He was… He was supposed to train me.” Steve looked up at the ceiling and gritted his teeth. Natasha shrugged and watched Steve carefully. “He taught me English,” she said with a bit of a choked laugh. “We sparred. I only kicked his butt half of the time. And he, there was something about him. He wasn’t as dead back then, either, they… They never really stopped breaking him. But he wasn’t a machine, not when he talked to me, not completely. And he was beautiful and I just-” Natasha stopped because her throat was closing up and she could feel her eyes stinging. She took a deep breath. “But yeah, they found out about us and then they hurt him and froze him and I didn’t see him again until Iraq and he didn’t recognize me.” Steve was turned away from her, his face was in the shadow and although Natasha craned her neck, she couldn’t see him and she didn’t know how he was responding. She hadn’t cried and she considered that a success, but the next big success would be if Steve reacted well. He hated being lied to. She stood and decided that it was time for her to leave.  
“Have you said anything to him?” Steve asked, his back still to her. Natasha turned back to him and shook her head, and then remembered that he couldn’t see her and spoke.  
“No. Nothing,” she admitted in a whisper.  
“Do you plan on it?” He asked. Natasha was silent.  
“I don’t know,” she said and turned again to hurry out the door. Before she left, she looked back at Steve again and considered long and hard about saying anything. “He remembers you, Steve,” she said and her voice was another whisper, although she had meant to be louder. “Don’t… Don’t take that for granted, okay, he has memories of you. He knows he knew you. That’s important.”  
“I’m so sorry, Natasha,” Steve said. He had turned to face her now and the light from the window behind him illuminated his silhouette so he glowed. His face was dark, but his voice was sincere. She nodded silently and closed the door behind her and went back to Bucky’s apartment and flirted shamelessly with him, all the while, searching for some sign in his eyes that he knew something, anything.


	41. Skype

Bucky asked Natasha for her laptop and she brought it to him and he had difficulty navigating it, so she helped him find the video chatting app.  
“Wait, wait, wait,” Natasha said, snapping the laptop lid closed quickly and sliding herself in-between Bucky and the computer, blocking him every time he reached for it. “Who are you calling?” She demanded. Bucky stared at her.  
“Tony,” he said.  
“Is there something wrong with your arm?” Natasha asked, picking up his left hand and turning his wrist as she inspected it. She squeezed his hand, although it made him sad that he could only tell by watching the way her fingers closed instead of feeling her grasp. He took his hand back slowly and stared at her eyes intensely.  
“My arm is fine,” Bucky said. Natasha stared at him suspiciously. She knew why he wanted to talk to Tony, she just didn’t want to let him. “Please, Natasha,” he said. “I need to do this.”  
“Says who,” Natasha said. Bucky kept his eye contact with her steady.  
“Natasha,” he said and switched quietly to Russian. “Please.” Natasha looked down at him, sitting at his desk, and something in her eyes looked hurt, but he watched her build up a very effective wall around it and she slowly slipped away from him.  
“Fine,” she replied in English. “Fine, but… Be gentle on him. Be gentle on yourself, okay?”  
“Okay,” Bucky said, opening the laptop lid again.  
“Do you want me to be here?” Natasha asked. Bucky glanced over at his bed behind him and Natasha took the cues from his face and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, just out of the camera frame, and watched him. Bucky called Tony Stark.  
Tony’s face filled the screen after a time and he squinted into the camera, confused.  
“Soldier-cicle number two,” he pronounced loudly. “Hello. What do you need?”  
Bucky realized now with a sick feeling in his heart and his stomach that he really didn’t know what to say.  
“I’m sorry about Howard and Maria, Tony,” Bucky said. Tony stared at him for a long time, stunned, then cleared his throat and looked away.  
“Thank you,” he said after a long, silent pause. Bucky looked down. Natasha leaned towards him out of the corner of his eye. He could feel her concern.  
“Do you know, then?” Bucky asked. He wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from Tony’s reaction. He didn’t know to what extent he’d have to explain himself and how much he would have to apologize before Tony hung up.  
“I knew,” Tony said. “I knew this whole time.”  
“Then why did you fix my arm?” Bucky asked, bewildered. “Why were you kind to me.”  
“People change,” Tony said. “And it wasn’t your fault. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell Cap, I couldn’t not help you.” Bucky nodded thoughtfully. There was a bitter taste in his mouth and a sharp pain in his heart. Tony began to pace behind the camera and Bucky watched him, hunched over the screen. He glanced back at Natasha, whose face was red. She smiled weakly at him and he turned back around. “I wanted to blame you so badly!!” Tony cried. He wasn’t facing the camera, but he whirled around now and stared right up at Bucky. “I wanted to hate you!” Bucky watched Tony’s shoulders slump. “But I couldn’t. You aren’t, you aren’t like Loki. I can’t just hate you. It was… We were all victims here, okay?” Bucky realized there were tears, wetness on his cheeks and he furiously wiped them away with both hands.  
“Thank you,” Bucky whispered at Tony through the camera. Tony looked away again and nodded.  
“Yeah,” he said. “So, um, how’s that arm?” Bucky didn’t really want to show him because his hands, both of his hands, were shaking, and he didn’t want Tony to think he’d broken his arm again, but he held up his left arm and tried to steady it’s trembling.  
“It’s fine,” Bucky said. “No, it’s great, actually. I’m just, um, shaky, that’s just me, ignore that.”  
“Glad to see you haven’t gotten it crushed again,” Tony said. Bucky smiled a little.  
“I’m glad, too,” he replied.  
“How’s Steve?” Tony asked and Bucky’s smile vanished. He glanced back at Natasha, who looked away.  
“Um,” Bucky said as he turned back slowly. “Um, Steve’s okay. He’s at his apartment right now, though, so you can call him later.”  
“Okay, well, tell him I said hi,” Tony said and Bucky nodded.  
“I will.”  
“Tell him I said to watch out for you, okay?” Tony added before he ended the call. He was grinning at Bucky. “I don’t want you smushed again, fixing arms isn’t as easy as I make it look.” Bucky couldn’t smile back.  
“I’ll tell him,” he said quietly and the screen went black and Bucky felt something well up again in his chest and he couldn’t stop another stream of tears from streaking his face. He put his face in his hands and his shoulders shook. He felt Natasha drape herself over him in an embrace and it felt so good to be held, but it was also painful, he could barely appreciate her arms around his chest and shoulders because he was crying so hard. He let her pull him up and take him over to his bed and sit him down. He was overwhelmed with emotion. He felt like a weight had been taken off of his chest.  
“Oh, Bucky,” Natasha said and she kissed his cheek gently. He couldn’t quite believe it. He’d been forgiven. He had expected a torrent of hatred, had welcomed a punishment he felt he deserved, but in the end, he had always been forgiven. Tony didn’t hold it against him. Tony forgave him. Bucky barely let himself believe it.  
Bucky wept until he exhausted himself and Natasha left him so he could sleep. When he woke up, there was another box of thin mints sitting next to him, with a smiley face drawn on the front in Sharpie.


	42. Complicated

Happiness wasn’t even a goal for Steve Rogers anymore. It was a far-off and vague idea at the end of a dark tunnel and he couldn’t see a light in the distance. He looked at his friends, at how Bucky and Natasha suffered, Tasha so silently and Bucky so shamefully, and knew simplicity and contentment was not an option. The only thing he wanted now was to be with them. He didn’t even care if he and Bucky were happy together. He would mourn with Bucky and cry with him and share in his endless well of guilt. He would help Natasha hide her pain if that was what she wanted and he would listen to her like she had listened to him and it pained him that he only was just realizing that she was going through the exact same thing as him and she was in pain too and he never noticed and he wanted so badly to make up for that now.  
But as Steve stepped back and looked at the situation, he couldn’t help but think that he was doing more harm than good and his friends did not want to suffer with him. They were both stubbornly dead-set on cutting him out and suffering alone, so Steve had decided to step back for a time, give them space, and let them come to him as they felt comfortable doing so. Steve wasn’t sure if this was the best thing to do, but he knew he couldn’t keep pressuring Bucky, and Natasha only opened up when she wanted to, so maybe if he excluded himself from the picture for a while, they’d begin to feel a little better and a little more relaxed.  
And heaven knows, they needed each other.  
He could let Bucky go on with Natasha’s support. Bucky didn’t need him when he had Natasha around and Natasha needed only Bucky right now, clearly, although Steve knew very acutely that he needed the both of them. Natasha had a lot of memories to search for in Bucky’s eyes and Steve thought he could let them alone. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but as long as Bucky was getting better and Tasha was content with him, he supposed he’d get along some way.


	43. Ribs

The attack came in the night, when Bucky was sprawled across his bed, asleep, the blankets tied up around his body and the curtains closed tightly. His arm was disconnected on the bathroom counter again. They came in through the window, six men, six, and crept up on him. Whispers were exchanged. Two men flanked the door with guns in their hands and one stood in a battle-ready stance at the window. The other three stood around Bucky’s bed, more than prepared to tackle him down. His neck was in reach. One of the men pulled out a syringe and began to lean across the bed, but Bucky had already opened his eyes, disturbed. He shifted and turned and every man cocked his gun and Bucky leapt up, almost completely awake and yelling loudly for Natasha. The man with the syringe jumped at him and Bucky dodged, but he was still heavy with sleep and he moved slowly. It had been the first night of few that he had slept so soundly.  
“Natasha!!” Bucky screamed for next door. “Tasha!!”  
“Shut up,” one of his attackers growled and Bucky felt someone grab him by his hair from behind and he cried out. “Get the tranq, hurry!” The man instructed. “Where’s his friggin’ arm?!” Bucky reached up to grab the hand in his hair and dug his nails into the wrist, twisting it sharply to the right until he heard a snap and the man gasped. Every gun was trained on him, but most of the men seemed hesitant to approach him as he staggered to his feet. Suddenly, there was banging, fierce slamming, on the door and the guards jumped and turned their guns to the door as Natasha burst through. She dodged tranquilizer shots from every gun and Bucky raised his arm to hide his face from the blasts of guns on all sides. But before he could realize what was happening, he felt something jamming into the back of his neck, something cold and wet and he screamed. He whirled around to face an empty syringe and a sick grin and his vision began to blur and he reached out to slug the guy and missed.  
“Bucky!” He heard Steve yell and he turned around again to see the flash of blue and red metal connect with someone’s jaw and he reached out, shaking, but his vision was going and he couldn’t think and he tried to call out to Steve, he was so relieved to see him, but all that came out was frantic mumbles and suddenly he was on the ground and   
then suddenly   
he was   
out.  
Steve dropped to the ground next to Bucky, panicking, and grabbed his right wrist. There was a pulse, a fast and frantic pulse, but then someone kicked Steve hard right in the head and he slid across the carpet, far from Bucky, seeing stars.  
“Natasha,” Steve cried. “Natasha, they’re taking him!!” The words tore out of him, anguished. Three men had surrounded Bucky and were lifting him, pulling him away. His head lolled weakly. The window was open and they nearly had him out. All Steve felt was pure panic as he jumped to his feet and slung his shield directly at them. The man made eye contact with him in the second as the shield was coming for his face and he made a dark smirk and dragged Bucky’s body up in front of him and Steve watched in horror as his shield slammed right into Bucky’s gut. There was a cracking sound and Natasha screamed and then the men dragged Bucky, just mindful of his broken ribs, back out the window and onto the pavement outside. Steve ran at them, snatching up his shield from off the ground, but the men were shockingly fast and there was a waiting van to load the Winter Soldier into and take him away. The car was already moving by the time Steve got out of the window, Natasha beside him. They ran.  
“There’s going to be traffic ahead, we can’t lose them,” Natasha said. “We can’t!” Before she had time to say more, Steve ran out into the street, in front of cars and flashing headlights, tailing the car as fast as he could. He slung his shield again, this time at the car’s back wheels, catching one of them and getting stuck as it turned. The car slid and leapt, sparks flying. Steve took his chance and jumped at the car. The back doors swung open with a creaking of metal as the car spun on the road, screeching, and Steve fell inside, yanking his shield from the van’s wheel as quickly as he could. Guns went off and Steve held up his shield. Bucky was there, almost entirely strapped now to a metal folding table sticking out of the left wall. There was blood in the corner of his mouth and his bare chest was red and black and swelling quickly where Steve had hit him. Steve gritted his teeth and looked away. He slammed the first man’s face with his shield and slugged the second guy out. The driver got a whole kick or two in the face and Steve felt a bullet, a real bullet, not a tranq, which surprised him, nip his leg as he pulled it back. He didn’t care. Three guys out, one left in the apartment and two to go. The car was coming to a sliding stop now. Another array of bullets came and Steve held up his shield and walked through them. The men went out easily with a shield in the face and a fist to both of their guts. The van had stopped now, in the middle of the street, and there was flashing lights outside of the window and honking and Steve thought he heard ambulances.  
Good, he thought. Bucky needs a hospital. Steve dropped his shield, since he had no straps on his back to click it on, and approached Bucky. He began shakily undoing the straps, feeling sick. Natasha was there seconds later, crawling into the van and standing next to Steve. She stood there with him and stared at Bucky’s face. There were police in uniforms that reached the car and Steve looked to Bucky, help him, get him a doctor, we almost lost him again.  
Stretchers came out and men in uniforms that transferred Bucky carefully into a screaming ambulance.   
“We have to go with him,” Steve said.  
“I’ll get the car,” Natasha said. She looked over at Steve, her eyes red. She was thinking the same thing. We almost lost him again.  
“Thanks,” Steve said. “Hurry.” The ambulance doors closed, the lights were on, they were beginning to drive away. “Hurry, Natasha.”  
“Come on, it’s in the garage, come on,” Natasha said, pulling at Steve’s arm and Steve followed her as they ran to Natasha’s car.  
We almost lost him. Again.


	44. ---

Bucky had never liked hospitals to begin with. You’d be hard-pressed to find a person who did, since they are not particularly happy places to be, but Bucky especially didn’t like them. They used to scare him when he was a kid. Now, with the Winter Soldier as a part of him, Bucky would have thought he would be over his fear of hospitals, with their bare walls and masked doctors and hurting. After all, he had lived in that sort of environment for so long. However, he would soon wake up and discover that reality was quite the opposite of what he had expected. He was not, in fact, over his fear of hospitals.


	45. Hospitals

Bucky woke up after a long, long time with a searing headache that reminded him of something awful he couldn’t quite put his finger on and a sharp pain in his chest that made it difficult for him to breathe. There was an IV drip in his right arm and an oxygen mask over his face. What had happened?! Bucky reached up, not liking how the mask fit over his face like the metal mask he used to wear, and tore it off, his hand shaking. He looked to the IV drip next, feeling confined, feeling panicky, but he couldn’t reach it to tear off, realizing that he only had one arm. He almost hesitated before he brought the back of his hand to his mouth, but he hardened his resolve as the confusion and panic overwhelmed him and he yanked out the IV with his teeth quickly. He didn’t like the way he could feel it sliding out of his hand, he felt sickened. As he looked around, the lights bright in his eyes, he struggled to breathe between that horrible pain in his abdomen, the pounding in his skull and the panic he was feeling. Where was he? As Bucky stared, he could almost see Hydra doctors standing over him, dark walls, bright lights, and began to feel his mouth go dry. He thought he might be hyperventilating. He tried to sit up, but the pain got worse, so much worse that Bucky gasped sharply and fell back down. He took a minute for the pain to go away, and carefully, slowly, slid himself off of the hospital bed. His bare feet hit the cold tile and he shivered and wrapped his hand around his chest. He was wearing a hospital gown and he pulled aside the front piece to see gauze wrapped tightly around his torso and he gasped.  
The last thing Bucky remembered was… Steve. Hydra agents, attackers. They had finally hit him with that awful sedative. What happened after that? Bucky froze. Was he with Hydra? Had they gotten him, and just not attacked his memories yet? Oh, that was it, that was what his headache reminded him of. The pain of his mind being wiped. Bucky shuddered, disturbed, and tied his hospital gown back up quickly and sidled up to the door, peering through the window. There were people out there, lots of people, too many to run through, and he couldn’t fight them off well enough, injured and arm-less as he was. Bucky took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes, staying out of sight of the window. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He couldn’t go back there.  
Suddenly, the door began to open and Bucky jumped back, gasping from the pain in his ribs, and lifted his fist. He would go down fighting. Maybe they would accidentally kill him, if he was lucky.  
“Buck?” Steve said and Bucky stared, relief flooding him although he remained frozen. Hydra couldn’t have him, not when Steve was there. But Steve looked awful. He had shadows underneath his eyes and his shoulders were slumped. He looked concerned now, and scared. “Bucky, it’s just me, it’s okay.” You’re safe. Slowly, Bucky lowered his fist and backed up a little.  
“What happened,” he said.  
“You should lie down,” Steve said.  
“What happened, Steve,” Bucky asked. He needed Steve to know this was urgent. He wanted to know.  
“Bucky, oh no,” Natasha arrived behind Steve and Bucky turned his gaze to her now.  
“Tasha,” he said and the warmth in his own voice surprised him. He could see Steve visibly slump a little lower. “What happened to me?”  
“They almost had you,” Steve said. “Natasha sent me a distress signal and I ran over as fast as I could, but they got you in a van, they were running. We stopped them, but…,” Bucky could read it in Steve’s eyes. They were so close. Steve didn’t seem to want to say that, though, and he straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. Bad liar. “But we stopped them. They never stood a chance anyway, we weren’t going to let them get far.”  
“They did this?” Bucky asked, gesturing to his broken, screaming ribs. Steve took a deep breath and looked away.  
“I hit you on accident,” Steve admitted. “I missed.”  
“Since when do you miss?” Bucky replied.  
“Since your attackers started using you as a human shield,” Steve said bitterly. Bucky stopped and considered that. He could see it all in his head and he couldn’t imagine how terrible Steve must feel. It was unusual, though. They didn’t usually let him get hurt. Someone somewhere was paying dearly for that.  
“It’s okay, I don’t blame you,” Bucky said. He would heal quickly. Slowly, he turned back to the hospital bed and sat back down gingerly. “When can I go home? I need my arm back.” Bucky watched Steve grit his teeth and Natasha put her face in her hands. There was a long silence. “No,” Bucky said, his face falling. “They didn’t.”  
“They thought they had you,” Natasha said. “They wanted all of you.” Bucky realized when she said this that they had barely gotten him back as it was. They couldn’t get him back in one piece. He wanted to hit something.  
“Why did you even take it off in the first place?” Steve asked and Bucky frowned.  
“This isn’t my fault,” he replied, even though that was exactly the opposite of how he felt.  
“That’s not what I meant,” Steve backpedaled.  
“Tony’s going to be so pissed,” Bucky groaned. “I just called him and told him it was okay.”  
“What are we going to do?” Natasha asked.  
“Well, I guess we’re going to have to get it back,” Steve replied.  
“How?” Bucky said. “We don’t even know where they are.” He was down an arm now. He was facing the reality that he would have to live without it, probably for a very long time. When it had broken the first time, Bucky knew it would only be a matter of time before he would have the use of both of his arms again, but now he wasn’t quite sure. He didn’t know how he was going to do any damage against Hydra like this.  
“We can get Tony to design another one?” Natasha suggested and Bucky frowned. He didn’t want to ask Tony for any more than he’d already given him.  
“I’ll pay him for it,” Bucky added, in order to reconcile himself more than anything. “I have the funds now. I can pay him back for the last time now, too.” Then it wouldn’t be a favor. “But before that, I want to get out of here.” Steve frowned.  
“We aren’t really sure where to put you,” he admitted. Truthfully, Bucky could see why they wouldn’t want him back in his apartment. But it was his and he didn’t want to stay in a hospital and they couldn’t stop him.  
“Well I can’t stay here,” Bucky said stubbornly. “How long was I out?”  
“I know you don’t like it here,” Steve said, which caught Bucky off-guard until he remembered that Steve was bound to know some of these things about him. “But you can’t go back to your apartment. It’s not safe. They’ll just attack again.”  
“How long was I asleep?” Bucky repeated himself. Steve frowned at him.  
“A little over a day,” he said. “What they gave you must have really packed a punch.” Bucky closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He let out a breath.  
“My head hurts, now that you remind me,” he muttered.  
“We can talk about it later,” Steve suggested.  
“Let’s do that,” Bucky agreed and watched Steve turn and walk, no, not walk, limp to the door. Confused, Bucky sat up, slowly and careful with his broken ribs. “Hey, wait,” he cried and Steve turned back around. Bucky’s expression seemed to be question enough as Bucky glanced to the leg Steve was favoring and back up to his face. Steve shrugged.  
“Got nipped,” he said. “It’ll be fine, I’ll be walking normally soon.”  
“Does it hurt?” Bucky asked, which he later regarded as a redundant question, because yes, of course, being shot in the leg hurt. But Steve only shrugged again.  
“How does two broken and three fractured ribs feel?” He responded and Bucky wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh or respond seriously, so he laid back down slowly and frowned more. He didn’t like it that Steve was being shot on his behalf. “We’ll talk more when you’re feeling better,” Steve added and shut the door behind him. Bucky could tell he was trying not to limp as badly and almost made Bucky regret asking.  
“I’ll leave in a minute, too,” Natasha said and Bucky jumped a little, looking over to where she had been leaning against a wall.  
“You shocked me!” he gasped. “I completely forgot you were there.” Natasha half-smiled and rolled her eyes.  
“Well, you and Steve were having a moment, so I thought I’d back off,” she said. “Besides, you ought to expect me to be unseen, Bucky, it is my job after all.”  
“That’s a shame,” Bucky said before he could think and Natasha looked at him suspiciously.  
“What do you mean?” She asked and Bucky cursed himself for speaking before thinking.  
“I mean, uh, it’s a shame that it’s your job to be unseen,” Bucky repeated himself. He couldn’t believe that he was actually saying what he had been thinking aloud, but he didn’t know how else to explain himself. “You’re too beautiful to go unseen.” He had hoped that Natasha would laugh or flirt back or be flattered, but instead, her face hardened and she looked away. Bucky was rather stunned and resolved to himself to never try to flirt again.  
“There was a day you wouldn’t say that,” she said. Bucky was confused. He stared up at her from his hospital bed. This was a very, very strange thing to say and it made Bucky think that something was quite wrong. What day did she mean? Was she referencing the Winter Soldier? It reminded Bucky of the time he had found her crying in her apartment. They’d never spoken of that again and he had tried to put it out of his mind, but now he was inexplicably reminded and all he could see was the tears that had been in her eyes and the unreadable emotions there when she had spoken to him.  
“Did, uh, did I offend you?” He asked. “I didn’t mean to.” Natasha looked at him again and this time she was smiling.  
“No, no, nothing like that,” she replied and leaned forward to grab his hand. He let her take it, rather dumbfounded. She held his hand for a while, turning it over in her own. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking about, but his only guess could be that she was thinking of his other hand while looking at this one. She rubbed the place where he had torn out his IV. “Why do people always do that?” She asked thoughtfully. “You’ll hurt yourself like that, we’ll have to get a nurse in here to replace this.”  
“I don’t want it, I want to go home,” Bucky said, aware of how childish he sounded. His head was pounding like crazy, but he still didn’t really want Natasha to leave. As if reading his thoughts in order to contradict him, Natasha replaced his hand gently on his lap and backed away a little.  
“You need rest,” she said. He looked down at his hand and back up at her silently.  
“What is it, Natasha?” He asked.  
“What do you mean?” Natasha asked and stared into his eyes and suddenly, Bucky lost the courage to pursue the question. He wanted to know what she thought about when she said and did these strange things, but there were warnings in her eyes and he stopped.  
“Nothing,” he muttered, looking up at her. There was a strand of auburn hair in her face. She stared back at him and he leaned forward, his hand outstretched and not without pain in his chest, and she leaned down to him too. He reached out and tucked the piece of hair back behind her ear gently. She caught his hand again as he was pulling it back and pulled him closer to her. He pretended like it didn’t hurt his ribs, but when she leaned forward and kissed his forehead, he forgot about the pain completely. It was almost as intimate as if she had kissed him directly on the mouth, the silence was so heavy. Bucky wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but Natasha was gone in a blink before he could fully process the situation. He leaned back carefully onto the hospital pillows and stared at the ceiling and tried to wish his headache away.


	46. Gone

Natasha found Steve outside of Bucky’s hospital room. He had been sitting, waiting for her, leaning over his knees and hanging his head. Natasha stood in front of him and waited for him to look up.  
“He’s right,” Steve said. “We need to get him out of this place.”  
“Why?” Natasha asked, glancing around, suspicious suddenly that Steve had noticed something she hadn’t.  
“Buck hates hospitals,” Steve said and Natasha looked down at him, letting herself relax. That was just it?  
“It’s perfectly safe here,” Natasha said. “As safe as he can be. And he’s resting.”  
“But hospitals scare him,” Steve protested and Natasha smiled a little.   
“That’s cute, Steve,” she said. “But really, what else are we going to do with him?” Steve looked back down, frowning, and sighed. He knew as well as she did that there was nowhere else to go. The hospital wasn’t ideal, not by any means, but for now, especially with Bucky as injured as he was, it would have to do. There was a silence and Natasha sat down gingerly next to Steve. She glanced down at his leg. He had been right, it would heal fast, but she still worried about him.  
“You know, I was thinking about you and Bucky the other day,” Steve said and Natasha looked over at him, a hardened mask on her face already, unsure of what to expect. They hadn’t spoken about it since the night she had told him the truth. “I was watching you. He adores you.” Natasha looked back over her shoulder at Bucky’s hospital room, the door still slightly ajar and she wondered if she should get it up and shut it for him.  
“Yeah, well, he’s sweet like that,” she said.  
“This seems crazy,” Steve said, sitting up a little and Natasha looked back over at him. “But… Don’t you want it like that forever?”  
“What do you mean?” Natasha asked. Steve cast his eyes downward and then back up again and Natasha followed him carefully, reading him.  
“I mean, think about it, Natasha,” Steve said. “Look at what happened to Bucky and me. If he gets memories of you from before, even just one, he will never be comfortable with you again.” Natasha felt something seize her heart at the notion. She didn’t like thinking about this. “Maybe you’re lucky he doesn’t recognize you from before. It’s like you can start over, maybe it isn’t such a curse.”  
“That’s horrible, of course I want him to get his memories ba--”  
“But he smiles at you, Natasha,” Steve interrupted her. There was a fire in his blue eyes like desperation and bitter sadness and Natasha stared at him. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even thought of that once. That this is like a second beginning.” Of course Natasha had thought of it. She thought of it every time she saw hope in Bucky’s eyes and he tried as gently as possible to flirt with her. She couldn’t imagine how Bucky would react to remembering her at Hydra. She felt sick as she realized that not only would he never be able to be himself with her, he would lose all trust he had in her. Everything they had built before and were trying to build now would be for naught. And she would hurt him. She put her head in her hands as it all began to overwhelm her. She didn’t know what to do. Telling him wasn’t an option as much as not telling him was.  
“Steve, what do I do?” She said, distraught. He’s as good as gone to me already. Natasha thought after a while that Steve wasn’t going to answer, but after a long pause, he finally spoke.  
“He needs you so badly right now, Natasha,” he said and his voice was almost hoarse-sounding. They had both been awake and up for far too long, Natasha knew. Steve needed rest. “He needs you.”  
I need him, Natasha thought. Seeing him again, after years, it had been like a miracle. It didn’t come without it’s negative sides, but she had never dreamed she’d met him again. Sometimes, looking at him, she felt as though she had to remind herself she wasn’t asleep and dreaming, or else dead and in heaven. “I know,” she said. She stood abruptly. “I’m going to go find some place to lie down.”  
“Are you leaving?” Steve asked.   
“Not if I can help it,” Natasha replied. She walked past Bucky’s room again and peered through the window in the door for a moment. He was laying on his bed, his arm across his chest, his eyes closed. She watched his chest rise and fall ever so slightly and she felt the urge to slip inside the room and scoot herself up next to him and put her head against his shoulder and fall asleep to the rhythm of his breathing, but the thought of him waking up and seeing her next to him and remembering her drove her away.


	47. Nightmares

The face in the burned away edges of the blackness in his memory haunted him. He could think of nothing else.  
It was difficult to see and it was difficult to breathe there were bright lights and doctors standing over him and Bucky was in pain. Panic registered, unabated panic and fear. He saw spots. He started screaming and kicking and everything was a blur. He woke up when he hit the floor-hard-and all his broken ribs exploded like fireworks throughout his chest. Doctors around him scattered, talked loudly, and Bucky, confused and disoriented and vision blurring with pain, wasn’t sure whether he truly was awake or asleep, safe or in Hydra’s hands, and all he could think was that he was hurting and someone had done this to him and he was never going back to Hydra, never ever, he would die first! Bucky tried to stand, but the pain had made him dizzy and he staggered and fell again and there were more fireworks of electric pain, but he was finally able to use the wall to drag himself to his feet. Someone was in his face, wearing a paper hospital mask and Bucky screamed. He watched his fist fly out right into that paper mask and there was more yelling and commotion. Then, Bucky watched, stunned and horrified and confused, as the face he had been missing worked it’s way out of the darkness and suddenly, he was there and Bucky realized he was still hitting things and kicking things, but Steve wrapped his arms around him and held him, just hugged him hard right back into reality and Bucky watched his own fist drop and felt his knees go weak as he realized that he wasn’t captured, he was safe, he was in a hospital, granted, but a hospital full of people trying to help him and he was still himself and still free and, feeling weak and overwhelmed and disturbed, Bucky clung to Steve and shook violently. Steve held him up, well, Steve and Bucky’s one arm wrapped around his back and gripping him as though his life depended on it, because Bucky’s knees were too weak.  
“Bucky, I’m here, it’s okay, you’re okay, you’re safe,” Steve was saying, repeating himself over and over into Bucky’s ear, trying to be calming. Everything around Bucky was settling now from nightmare realm back into plain hospital room and Steve Rogers. Bucky wanted to apologize for his outburst, but he wasn’t sure he knew how. He felt so guilty. When he could stand, he let Steve lead him back to his bed and help him lay back down. All the doctors and nurses that had been in the room were gone now. Bucky wondered if they had gone to get security.  
“Are you okay?” Natasha was saying. She was here, of course she was here.  
It hurts, Bucky wanted to say, but when he tried, his throat was raw and he felt copper in his mouth and he found he couldn’t speak. Had he screamed that hard?? It hurt to cough too, even though he tried and he felt warm blood dribble out of his mouth. He tried to rub it away, but his hand was shaking too hard and he just smeared blood all over his face. Humiliated and raw, Bucky dropped his head back down on his pillow and closed his eyes, gave up, while Natasha leaned into him and wiped his face. “We need a doctor in here,” she said desperately to Steve. Bucky opened his eyes and watched Steve look back and forth from Natasha to himself and then hurry to the door. Desperation gripped Bucky, something about the face in the black, and he threw himself forward and grabbed at Steve.  
“Wait, no,” Bucky whispered, his voice hoarse. “Wait.” Steve stopped and was back at Bucky’s side in an instant. “Stay here,” Bucky said and his voice cracked and grew more hoarse and he coughed. Steve glanced up over the other end of the bed to Natasha.  
“Go get a doctor,” he told her. Natasha looked down at Bucky, her face full of concern and her hand brushed the back of Bucky’s hand.  
“Are you okay with that?” She asked and although he felt like he was betraying her, he nodded weakly. She was out of the room in an instant and Steve and Bucky were alone. Bucky felt sick in every way he possibly could. He could have sworn he was dying except that he was feeling too much on the inside and on the outside to be letting go. Steve reached behind him and Bucky could hear the scraping of a chair against the floor as Steve pulled it up to his bedside. Bucky turned his head on his pillow and stared at Steve. He felt like he had to re-memorize his face.  
“Would you believe I always remembered you?” Bucky asked in the lowest, least painful whisper he could muster. Steve leaned forward in order to hear him better and shook his head.  
“What do you mean?”  
“When they wiped me the first time, I…” Bucky struggled to put it into words. “It was like I knew there was someone I was missing, but I… Couldn’t see your face. It was like there was this hole. Does that make sense?”  
“That makes sense,” Steve said. “I’m sorry, Bucky.” Bucky just clenched his teeth and looked forward and nodded, having felt better after telling Steve, even though he didn’t know why.  
Natasha returned quickly and doctors followed her and Bucky felt himself begin to tremble again, he struggled to force himself to breathe steadily as they surrounded him. Natasha held his hand as the doctors gave him a painkiller that was far too weak to kill the pain and unwrapped his bandages to check his ribs. He wanted them away, he wanted them gone, but he let them inspect him without protest. He thought to ask after the doctor he had slugged in the face, and any others that he had definitely hit during his explosion, but none of the doctors seemed to even want to make eye contact with him, so he let his question go unanswered.  
“The painkiller we gave him will put him to sleep soon,” Bucky heard one of the doctors say to Steve.  
“Thank you,” Natasha answered for Steve. Bucky glanced over at Steve, who was staring, his eyes unfocused, deep in thought. The look on his face was guilt-ridden. Bucky didn’t know what he was thinking about, but it didn’t look like happy things, so Bucky leaned over and nudged his shoulder gently. Steve started a little and looked up at Bucky questioningly.  
“Hey,” Bucky said and offered him a stilted, small smile. He just didn’t want Steve to look so grim. That small, broken smile seemed to mean a lot to Steve, though, because Steve smiled back, a grin that spread across his whole face, as though Bucky’s smile was worth a million dollars. Bucky looked forward again and felt himself become more calm as the room cleared. Natasha hesitated at the doorway, looking to Bucky for cues. He motioned her to him and she came forward and he whispered to her, “I’ll see you when I wake up.”  
“Okay,” she replied and withdrew, although she looked as though she wanted to say more. She reached out and put a hand on his head, smoothing back his hair before pulling away again. She left the room quickly, as though she knew if she lingered, she would want to touch him more. Bucky watched her leave, unaware of the look of awe on his face as Natasha shut the door behind her. He looked back down and ran his own hand through his hair again.  
“Should I leave, too?” Steve asked, poised to stand, but Bucky shook his head.  
“I’m not going to sleep,” he admitted.  
“I don’t think you really have a say in that,” Steve replied and Bucky smirked and exhaled.  
“Their painkiller isn’t going to do much, I promise,” he said, thinking of the serum he remembered, and Steve relaxed back into his chair again, his eyebrows furrowed.  
“Why?” he asked, but Bucky ignored the question. “Do you need more?”  
“No, never mind it,” he said. “Just, would you just stay here?”  
“Course, Buck,” Steve replied and they sat in silence for a while. Then, Steve started to talk, and Bucky was grateful because the pain was too much to concentrate on. “That was a nightmare, huh?” he asked. “Do you have them a lot?” Bucky shrugged his shoulder and shifted a little.  
“They used to be a lot worse,” he whispered back. “At the beginning, I couldn’t keep a hotel room because they’d kick me out for screaming in the night. And sometimes I couldn’t communicate well enough to explain myself. Sometimes, all I heard was Russian, you know?” Bucky paused and thought. “But, uh, they’re better now. It only happens every so often now and usually, I can keep silent during them.” Steve nodded thoughtfully as he listened.  
“Me too,” he replied and Bucky looked over at him suddenly, concerned.  
“You have nightmares?” He asked and Steve nodded again.  
“Like you said, they get better. But I, I still feel like…,” Steve stopped and rubbed his forehead and Bucky listened, waiting patiently. “I still wake up and feel like we’re in the war again.” Bucky stared at Steve and new understanding came over him. It was like relief, like he wasn’t alone.  
“Me too!” Bucky said, maybe too excitedly because his voice came out loud and he had to stop and try to swallow back choking and lean back into his pillows. Steve sat up, but realized there was nothing he could do, so he waited until Bucky had settled himself back down. “I mean,” Bucky added in an extra-quiet whisper. “I don’t see much of World War Two, just flashes, but I see Hydra and the Cold War.” Steve nodded. They lapsed back into silence for a moment, but Bucky’s mind was whirling. He wanted to talk more about it, but he wasn’t sure what to say. He just couldn’t believe how relieved he felt to suddenly not be alone in his pain anymore.  
“I see your ‘death’ a lot,” Steve said suddenly and Bucky looked back over at him and searched his face. Steve wasn’t looking at him. “There have even been a couple dreams where I was almost lucid and I could change things and you still fell.” Steve laughed a little, as though in an attempt to lift the tension, and rubbed his hair anxiously. Bucky knew Steve blamed himself, he’d known it for a while but what he didn’t know was how to make Steve stop. Bucky didn’t blame him, although his memories of his fall were spotty at best, he did not blame Steve in the slightest. He felt like just telling him wouldn’t be enough though, but he could try.  
“None of this is your fault, Steve,” Bucky whispered. “Okay, listen to me, none of it. There was nothing you could do.” Steve looked at him and his eyes were pleading. He still blamed himself. Rationalizing it wasn’t going to help him forgive himself; Bucky knew that so well. “Steve, I forgive you,” Bucky said and Steve stared hard into his face. Bucky tried to smile at him again and he reached forward and took Steve’s shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly. “I forgive you, okay? I never blamed you, not once.” Steve’s face was every shade of relief possible as he processed this. There was a hope in his eyes and he took Bucky’s other shoulder as well, the one across from him, with the scars and the metal jutting out, and smiled hugely.  
“Thank you,” he said and his voice was choked. Bucky smiled quietly at him and leaned back into his pillows, closing his eyes. He wondered if Steve felt as better about things as he did.  
A minute later, Steve spoke again.  
“You blame me for the ribs, though?” He asked and his tone was teasing. Bucky smirked.  
“Give me another seventy years and we’ll talk then,” he teased back and Steve laughed loudly. Bucky opened his eyes and looked over at Steve and smiled a little, fondly. Then, something occurred to him, something he’d been meaning to say, and his smile fell.  
“Why haven’t you been talking to me?” Bucky asked and Steve looked over at him.  
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.  
“You know exactly what I mean,” Bucky said. “You live right across the street from me and I didn’t see you at all until I was literally being dragged out a window by Hydra. What the hell, Steve.” Steve looked at Bucky and pursed his lips, swallowing, looking him dead in the eye. He seemed somehow confused and guilty and pained. “I thought it was about the Starks, but then I wasn’t sure and I never understand with you, Steve.” Steve was silent for a moment, staring down at his hands. “Well?” Bucky prodded. He was beginning to lose confidence. Maybe it was about the Starks. Maybe it was about everything else. Maybe Bucky was just hard to love, he knew that, he couldn’t blame Steve.  
“You want me there?” Steve asked quietly, looking up slowly. Bucky stared at him, dumbfounded.  
“Of course I want you there,” he replied. Steve looked away and took a deep breath.  
“I think I do a lot more harm than good for you, Buck,” Steve said. “Tasha’s really good for you, she makes you happy, right?”  
“I want you there, Steve,” Bucky replied, more forcefully this time. “It’s probably my fault, I probably made you think that, but that’s not what I wanted. It’s, I, it’s hard to articulate myself sometimes, I’m sorry.”  
“Have you tried writing?” Steve asked and Bucky froze, thinking for a second that Steve had found his journal, but then relaxed after a second, remembering again that Steve knew things about him. He laughed and looked over at Steve. “What?” Steve said.  
“Yes, I’ve tried writing,” Bucky said with a small grin. “Is that a thing I do?”  
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Is it helping?” Bucky nodded and they lapsed into quiet again for a moment.  
“And about Howard,” Steve began again and Bucky said “Do you blame me?” at the same time as Steve said “How could I blame you?” and they stared at each other for a second and Bucky looked away, sucking in a breath.  
“The way you left, after… After-” Bucky said.  
“I never blamed you,” Steve cried. “I didn’t want you to think that, but Howard, he was our friend.”  
“I know,” Bucky said.  
“I didn’t want you to see me…,” Steve said and put his face in his hands. When he pulled his hands back, taking in a long breath, his face was red. “I didn’t want you to see me get upset.”  
“I was upset, too,” Bucky whispered.  
“Why can’t we grieve together?” Steve asked, staring into Bucky’s eyes and Bucky stared back and shook his head.  
“I don’t know,” he said and closed his eyes, turning his head back. He knew why. It was because he was broken. But even so, he was so glad to finally be able to talk uninhibited to Steve, to clear things up, to connect with him like he hadn’t been able to in seventy years. There was a long silence. “Promise me you’ll talk to me,” Bucky demanded, his eyes still closed. “Don’t just walk out anymore.”  
“Okay,” Steve said quietly. “Promise me you won’t cut me out.” Bucky opened his eyes again and looked over at Steve. He hesitated for one second and then nodded.  
“I promise,” he said and took a breath. After a time, Bucky closed his eyes again and leaned back into his pillows and Steve noticed.  
“Is your painkiller kicking in now?” Steve asked, noticing that Bucky hadn’t opened his eyes. It was too complicated to explain, and although Bucky felt as though he’d taken leaps in the right direction today, he still wasn’t ready to discuss serums, so he simply nodded his head slowly and let Steve think he was drifting off to sleep. Even though tired, he was still wide awake and all of him still ached as badly as before. He listened to Steve stand and limp to the door and close it behind him and he was left alone with the pain that wouldn’t let him sleep and the beeping of dreaded hospital machines that made his stomach turn and brought up the worst of memories, but with a smile on his face because for the first time in a very, very long time, he felt better about Steve and he felt better about himself and he was happy.


	48. Phantom

Bucky never fell back asleep, of course. He thought about why the painkiller didn’t work as he sat there, pushing his mind to remember what had happened to him before Steve had saved him the first time. He had vague memories of needles and pain like fire and then ice all over his entire body, and then being dragged out by Steve, afraid and weak and confused. He hadn’t known what had happened to him then, and by the time he had put it together, he was still too unsure to say anything. It seemed ridiculous, and unbelievable, but other faint memories and pieces of dialogue in his head led him to believe that he had been given something during his time there. Maybe it wasn’t the same thing that made Steve a supersoldier, but it helped him survive his fall and losing his arm and it swallowed the painkiller that was supposed to knock him unconscious. Bucky recounted his many injuries, both while with Hydra and away, and wondered if they had healed any faster than normal. He felt he couldn’t be sure, but he was suspicious. Bucky looked down at his right hand and frowned tiredly. He wondered if he could get tests done, and if they would be able to tell him if there was anything extraordinary running in his blood now.  
Maybe it was because Bucky had been inspecting his flesh and blood right hand, or maybe it was because he had already been without his arm for a day or so now, but Bucky very suddenly got the sensation of tingling in the left arm that wasn’t there. Oh no, he thought and rubbed his face exhaustedly. This had happened to him before when Tony had been fixing his arm earlier. This time, however, he wasn’t reassured an arm after a week or so and he had no idea how bad the phantom pain would be. As the tingling escalated into burning, Bucky clenched his teeth and tried to put his mind off of it. He considered calling Steve back and explaining what he thought his situation to be and begging Steve to find him some sort of intense morphine drip, anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to have that conversation with Steve just yet. He certainly couldn’t tell Natasha because he was afraid of what her response would be. He didn’t want to be looked at as any more inhuman than he already was. So Bucky clenched his jaw and his right hand into a fist and ignored his throat and chest and arm. He considered the idea of asking Tony for more help and wondered how much Tony would charge for something simple. It was true, he had next to no real concept of modern money, but he imagined the arm that had been stolen from him had costed quite a lot. He knew he couldn’t afford one exactly like it, but he would be incredibly grateful to at least have something to attach to his shoulder. Moving fingers would be a plus as well; maybe not a realistic dream, but one he could hope for. And it’s a shame, Bucky thought. I had just been ready to replace the star with something different. He wondered if Hydra had painted the star back on and were simply waiting to get their assassin back to reattach him. He shuddered a little at the thought. He wasn’t going back. He would never go back.  
There was a sharp rap at the door and Bucky looked up to see Natasha standing there, holding the door open. She smiled at him.  
“You didn’t sleep long,” she said. He shrugged and as she came closer, whispered his response.  
“Guess I wasn’t tired,” he said, which wasn’t a great answer and didn’t make a lot of sense as he was supposed to be sedated, but she didn’t question him. He thought maybe she hadn’t completely heard him.  
Natasha found the chair Steve had been using and pulled it around to where she sat on Bucky’s other side. He shifted again in order to angle himself towards her and tried to ignore the way the firey sensation below his left shoulder followed him.  
“How are you feeling?” She asked, leaning over the bed to get closer to him.  
“Like I was kidnapped and hit with a giant vibranium frisbee,” Bucky replied cheekily and gave her a smile. She smiled back and laughed.  
“Look at you, Mr. Personality today, huh?” Natasha said. “Steve said you seemed to be feeling a little better.” Bucky shrugged and his left arm screamed.  
“I’ve definitely felt a lot worse,” he admitted, although he wasn’t sure, as he took inventory of his pain again, just how true that was. “Good days come and go, I guess. I just… I just can’t wait to get out of this hospital.” Natasha nodded.  
“We’ll get you out soon. We’ll construct a better security system, too,” Natasha said and Bucky nodded.  
“As long as I’m out of here soon, I’m happy,” Bucky replied. Well, out of the hospital and maybe with an arm, too, if he was lucky. He didn’t want to, he was embarrassed to admit to Tony that the arm was gone, but he decided to mention it. “Should we call Tony today?” Natasha nodded thoughtfully.  
“Yeah, that’d be a good idea,” Natasha said, but she seemed to notice how Bucky was frowning again. “Do you not want to talk to him? I could do it later for you.” Bucky exhaled.  
“I just feel bad,” he said, still whispering, shifting again even though it hurt. “Asking Tony to do all this, over and over again. He’s a good guy. I feel bad even if I pay him.”  
“Don’t,” Natasha said. “You should have heard him talk about your arm after you left Stark Tower. I think he felt honored by the end.” Bucky smirked a little. He didn’t notice that Natasha had just slipped and told him she had been at Stark Tower. He was too deep in thought for that.  
“Well, we’ll see,” Bucky replied. “And besides, I don’t know how well I could talk to him anyway, I seem to have screamed myself bloody.” Natasha’s face fell and she looked down.  
“The doctors said your throat will be okay soon, too,” she offered. Bucky looked at her, concerned. She seemed particularly upset all of a sudden.  
“Are you okay?” he asked and she looked up and her eyes were becoming red.  
“I’d just… never heard anything like that, Bucky,” she replied and he stared at her hard.   
“What do you mean?” he asked.  
“You screamed like you were being gutted,” she said, looking up at the ceiling and biting her bottom lip. “I didn’t even know people could make a sound that pained.” Bucky stared and swallowed, even though his throat was raw and it stung.  
“I’m sorry, Tasha,” he whispered and Natasha laughed.  
“Bucky, please, don’t be sorry,” she cried. “That’s ridiculous.”  
“Okay, I’m not sorry,” Bucky said, dead-seriously, and he never took his eyes off of her. She glanced at him and instantly smiled and looked away again.  
“Stop it,” she said with a grin. Bucky began to smile a little too, the seriousness lifting. Her smile was contagious.  
“Stop what,” he teased with his voice still hoarse and whispery. She looked back at him and rolled her eyes.  
“Stop looking at me with those puppy dog eyes and your little pout,” she said. “We have important things to discuss.”  
“What could be more important than this,” Bucky said and even though he sounded flirty and teasing, he meant it, deep in his heart. What could be more important than making Natasha smile? What could be more important than taking a good day and making the most of it, even though he was sitting in the hospital? He felt relatively functional for once. What could be more important than talking to Steve and making it work or flirting with Natasha and watching her grin? He didn’t know when his next good day would be. He didn’t know if tomorrow, he wouldn’t be able to lean over and smile at Steve and feel worthy enough to understand that Steve cared about what he was feeling. Good days come and go, as Bucky had said to Natasha. What was more important than being happy on them?  
“Well, we need to get you back on your feet, we need to get going on our super-spying,” Natasha said. “And put something in here,” she added, reaching forward and tapping the empty metal socket that stuck out of Bucky’s hospital gown. Bucky’s first instinct was to pull away, and he did, both out of the phantom pain and because part of him still felt uncomfortable with her touching it, like what was left of his his left shoulder should be hidden and remain unmentioned. Earlier, back at the apartment, he wasn’t comfortable until she recognized that he didn’t have an arm. Now, he would rather she pretend nothing was wrong with him and especially, especially not touch it. Natasha noticed his flinch and pulled her hand away, concerned, but she didn’t seem to realize that he didn’t want her to make a big deal out of it. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” she asked. He frowned and looked at his shoulder.  
“There’s nothing to be done about it,” he said, dismissing her question and answering it at the same time. “I can just grit my teeth through it.” Natasha looked at him, biting her lip.  
“What’s wrong? Does it always hurt?” She asked and he shook his head. It made him uncomfortable now, talking about it. He felt that disdain of being broken, or being a little less than human. He wished his arm had never been ripped off in the first place.  
“It hurts when I don’t have it on for a long time,” Bucky said and accidentally raised his voice too loud so his voice sounded scraping and raw and he had to stop and lower it half-way through. “I feel fine when I have it in. It’s just sort of like a burning, like-” and here he stopped and swallowed and started over, whispering again. “Like it’s still there even though I know it’s not.” Bucky reached over and rubbed his shoulder where scar tissue met metal and was disconcerted when he could feel his skin just shifting ever so slightly around it. “It’s fine, though, can we talk about something else?”  
“Of course,” Natasha said obligingly. “What do you want to talk about?” He looked over at her and smiled at her again.  
“Tell me about you,” he asked. “Steve’s probably told you my whole life story, more than I can probably remember. But I don’t know much about you. Not enough, anyway.” Bucky felt as though it was an innocent enough question, but Natasha’s face grew dark and he thought maybe he’d said something wrong. “Is, is that okay?”  
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Natasha said. “What do you want to know?”  
“Well,” Bucky started. “Where were you born?”  
“Russia,” she said, but she said it slowly and carefully as though she had been considering lying. Bucky stared at her. Why would she lie?  
“Okay,” he said, this being something he had already put together due to her flawless Russian accent and her last name. “And then what?” Natasha shifted.  
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” She asked and Bucky frowned.  
“What, yeah, I mean, as okay as I can be with, like, five broken ribs,” he said.  
“I mean memory-wise,” Natasha said and Bucky found himself again at a loss in front of her. What was it about her that he couldn’t put together? Why did she always do this, what drove her to say and do such unusual things? It was suspicious and although Bucky knew with a certain, internal surety that she was safe for him and that the way she kissed him or touched him wasn’t a lie, he couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t the only thing that was true in Natasha Romanoff.  
“What are you doing, Tasha?” Bucky asked. “Why are you doing this? What are you, you’re keeping something from me-aren’t you?” Natasha stared hard at him. Her eyes were conflicted. “You need to tell me, what is it?” Bucky begged and Natasha shook her head. She leaned forward and kissed his head and he frowned at her. “You only kiss me when you’re apologizing for something,” he accused her as she pulled back and she made a sly face at him and he grinned a little and took the opportunity, adding, “and that is a challenge.” This time, she leaned right into his mouth and he sat forward and put his hand behind her head gently and she put a hand on his face, her fingers splayed out over his jawline and into his neck and finally, really, truly kissed him. When she pulled away and he leaned back, he grinned at her and muttered, “It’s a good thing you’re such a good kisser, you’ve distracted me from being mad at you.”  
“Yeah, well, I’m sure it won’t distract you for long,” Natasha said and smiled at him sadly.


	49. Clint

Natasha stood outside of Bucky’s room to make the call to Tony. She noticed police officers, two of them, going up and down the hall with their hands in their pockets and felt suspicious. They hadn’t been there before. One of them caught her eye and tipped his hat. She glanced back behind her at Bucky’s door, through the window where he was sitting on his bed, staring at the ceiling in thought, and back to the police officer. They were there for Bucky, she realized, after his explosive outburst. She felt a level of defensiveness about the situation, but she couldn’t argue that Bucky could be dangerous. He didn’t mean to be, but it was hard not to expect him to lash out when he was caught between Hydra nightmares and reality. And besides, if Hydra came for him now, maybe the officers would do their share of protecting him while they protected others from him. It wasn’t an all bad situation. Still, Natasha leaned against Bucky’s door herself, hoping her body language would send a clear message. You may be wary of him, but I’m going to stand beside him no matter what. Don’t come near him unless you want to go through me.  
Natasha first dialed Tony.  
“Hello, yes, this is Tony Stark,” Tony answered.  
“Tony, we’ve got a problem,” Natasha said.  
“Oh, hey Natasha,” Tony said. “Is it about Bucky? What did he do to his arm now?”  
“He got it stolen,” Natasha replied and there was a moment of quiet while Tony registered this.  
“No way. How does he even do that?” Tony replied.  
“He was attacked,” Natasha said and she began pacing in front of Bucky’s door. “How much would it cost to build him a replacement, something impermanent? You’re sort of our only option.”  
“Good to know I have a monopoly on robot arms,” Tony said.  
“Well, you and Hydra. But that’s beside the point, you didn’t answer my question,” Natasha said. She waited in silence while Tony let out a breath. Already, she could hear him refusing her and her heart sank. No, Tony, please.  
“You caught me at a bad time,” Tony said. “I’m really swamped. Like, really swamped. I couldn’t even start putting thought into an arm until… I dunno, a month from now? Two months?” Natasha bit her lip and pushed her hair back.  
“What about Bruce?” She said.  
“Uh, he’s a nuclear physicist, not a roboticist, and he’s helping me. Say hi, Bruce.”  
“Hi Bruce.”  
“That was Bruce,” Tony said.  
“Thor’s girlfriend?” Natasha tried again, feeling desperate.  
“Her name is Jane Foster. And she’s an astrophysicist,” Tony said. “Look, tell Bucky we’ll try to pull something together for him when we’re done here, okay?” Natasha was quiet. “Natasha? Are you there?”  
“Yeah, I’m here,” she said.  
“I’m sorry, but…,” Tony stopped and Natasha could practically see his frown.  
“No, I know, I understand,” she said. “He’s, uh, he’s actually pretty good with just one arm, you’d be surprised.”  
“No, we have faith in him, I bet he’s great,” Tony said. There was mumbling, presumably Bruce, and Tony laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I know, right?” Tony said, not to Natasha.  
“I’ll let you go now,” Natasha said and Tony stopped her quickly.  
“Have you considered any sort of regular prosthesis?” He asked. “That might make a good replacement for a while.”  
“We’ll have to consider it,” Natasha replied, not yet wanting to admit just how good of an idea that was, and Tony said okay and goodbye and she hung up, angry and disappointed. She didn’t know how she was going to tell Bucky, or Steve.   
The next call Natasha made was to Fury. Of course, he didn’t answer, but she left a message on his machine and prayed he’d listen to it.  
“Fury, get back to me soon, okay?” Natasha said. “Bucky and I haven’t been able to get anywhere with our mission, there have been a lot of setbacks. We’re in the hospital right now. But we’re going to get on it as soon as Bucky is better, okay? Please answer. Bye.”  
The third call Natasha made was to Clint Barton.  
“Hey Natasha!” Clint answered cheerfully. “What’s up?”  
“I’m in the hospital,” Natasha said. “Bucky got hurt.”  
“I heard,” Clint replied, his voice going grim. “The chase was all over the newspapers. Is he okay?”  
“He lost an arm,” Natasha said.  
“Again?” Clint said, astonished and Natasha couldn’t help but chuckle a little.  
“Yeah. And I can’t find anyone to make him a replacement. And I’m just really stressed out. Can we talk?” Natasha asked.  
“Of course!” Clint replied and he sounded as though he was eating something. “Just here, or do you want to come over?” Natasha looked around the hospital and although she didn’t want to leave Bucky, especially not with those security guards who would probably rather put a bullet in his head versus holding him and calming him if he panicked. And she knew he was prone to panicking. But she needed to vent.  
“I’ll be over in a second,” Natasha said, relieved that Clint had asked. She side-eyed the security guards. “But I can’t stay long.” Steve was here, and his leg was getting better. He would help Bucky if she was gone for thirty minutes.  
“That’s fine,” Clint said. “I just ordered pizza, we can have lunch.”  
“Thank you, Clint,” Natasha said and she could practically see him smile.  
“No prob, Nat. Don’t mention it,” he said and they hung up. Natasha glanced back at Bucky again one more time-he had his eyes closed now, he looked peaceful-and she ran out of the hospital to catch a cab to Clint’s apartment.


	50. Healed

The next few days were quiet. Bucky’s throat felt better and he didn’t have anymore nightmares because Steve and Natasha fell asleep in chairs by his bed at night with him. They brought boardgames that they all played over his bed, complete with bets on winners and friendly bickering. Bucky was so grateful that they stayed with him, even though he could see the exhaustion in Steve’s eyes and noticed the way Natasha began to slur her words the more tired she got. He had tried to shoo them away, make them go back to their apartments and get rest in their own beds, but both of them refused him. They took shifts sometimes, though, where Natasha would stay with him for a few hours alone and hold his hand and then Steve would come back, having slept, and sit and draw various things and chat with him while Natasha slept back at home. All the while, Bucky felt as though they were re-teaching him how to be a friend and how to properly have Good Days and he loved them fiercely for it.  
Natasha told Steve and Bucky about what Tony had said regarding Bucky’s arm and Bucky had felt a sinking feeling like a fear in his heart and Steve frowned and folded his arms across his chest angrily, as though Tony owed them anything more. Bucky was subsequently comforted for the rest of the day, although he repeatedly reasserted that yes he was fine and yes he knew it would be okay and he didn’t quite like it, but if he had to go on with one arm or search for some sort of normal medical replacement, then that was something he would have to do and he would appreciate it if Natasha and Steve would have some faith in him. And he did feel that way, but he also kept hidden that sinking fear that told him that he was unwhole and inherently broken and would lose his life or else his freedom embarrassingly easy without the use of both of his arms.  
On the fourth day in the hospital, because Bucky insisted to his doctors that he didn’t feel anymore pain and because the huge black and blue bruise that had been there had mysteriously vanished, Bucky got another x-ray. He hadn’t wanted an x-ray, he just didn’t want to lie to medical professionals. If his chest didn’t hurt, it didn’t hurt and that was it. He thought of the serum he remembered and felt a little ill, but he prayed that maybe something had happened and he simply had miraculously gone numb. Either way, miraculous numbness was not the case, they all knew that, and Bucky was forced to have that x-ray even though he didn’t like it one bit.  
Bucky and Steve, because it was Steve’s shift, walked back to Bucky’s room behind doctors examining results and were quiet.  
While looking at the x-rays, the doctors broke out into a commotion.  
“It’s a miracle!” One of the doctors exclaimed.  
“His ribs are almost completely healed already,” another said in shock. “This is entirely unheard of.” Bucky felt a sinking feeling in his stomach and he looked over from the doctors and to Steve standing in the doorway next to him. Steve had been staring at him and his face was a mix of emotions as Bucky watched him put the pieces together and Bucky wanted to vanish, he wanted to run, he felt somehow embarrassed or else guilty and he just wished Steve would stop looking at him like that, like suddenly it was Steve that didn’t know Bucky.  
“How is that possible,” Steve asked.  
“I don’t know,” Bucky replied hollowly.  
“Did they do something to you,” Steve continued.  
“They did a lot of things to me,” Bucky said.  
“You know what I mean,” Steve said.  
“I don’t know,” Bucky said again. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t remember, I can’t see it, I, there was, there were needles, I think-” He was cut himself off, starting to shake, starting to breath hard, his hand on his forehead.  
“Hey, look, it’s okay,” Steve said, putting a hand on his shoulder, leading him gently to his bed and sitting him down. “Breathe. If you don’t remember, then you don’t remember. We can talk about it in a minute, okay?”  
“Okay,” Bucky said and tried to let himself be comforted. He waited while Steve asked the doctors to leave and the room became empty. Bucky still didn’t feel ready to have this conversation with Steve. He hadn’t even come to terms with it himself. He didn’t want it, he never wanted anything from Hydra, and especially not this. Steve shut the door as the last person left the room and came over to sit next to Bucky. They sat that way for a while, in silence.  
“So what do you know?” Steve asked. Bucky was quiet for a moment. He wanted to be able to put it all into one cohesive sentence, he had to think.  
“It’s all blurry,” Bucky said after a minute. He waited another minute and spoke again. “I get flashes.” Steve nodded and waited patiently. “I think… I think they, uh, gave me something… Something when they had me the first time. They, uh, tested it out, I think. And I lived. Through the test, I mean, and then, I guess, through everything else. I don’t know what it was, okay?”  
“Do you know what it does?” Steve asked and Bucky looked downwards and thought.  
“I’m not like you, if that’s what you mean,” Bucky said. “I’m no super-soldier.”  
“I know,” Steve said.  
“But I guess I can do this,” Bucky finished, gesturing to the x-ray pictures on the counter and then glancing down at his own chest. “Can you do this?” Steve shifted his weight and made a face.  
“I’ll heal, yeah,” Steve said. “But I think five broken ribs would keep me down at least a little longer.” Bucky frowned and nodded.  
“Okay,” he said.  
“We could probably send in some blood tests, if you’d like to see for sure?” Steve prompted him gently and Bucky nodded.  
“Let’s do that,” he said, staring down at the ground, frowning. Steve studied his face, and then smiled comfortingly and threw his arm around Bucky. He was sitting on Bucky’s left and he had to go around his metal half-shoulder, but Bucky didn’t mind Steve touching it as much as he minded Natasha. He just hoped the metal jutting out wasn’t poking Steve, because he couldn’t quite tell and all he could think was that that would be awkward and he would feel bad.  
“Don’t look so down,” Steve said to Bucky, his head cocked and a smile on his face. Bucky glanced over at him and pursed his lips, unable to force a smile. “This isn’t a bad thing. This is, actually, this is a great thing, right? This means you’re way more resilient than you even thought yourself! Healing faster is definitely not something to feel bad about.”  
“I didn’t want to be Hydra’s test dummy,” Bucky said although he knew that statement was at least a little untrue. Not about his wanting it, but about the test dummy part. They wanted him and him in specific. He was no test dummy. Sure, tests were done on him, he was tested, but not in any way that would have taken away his life. He was no guinea pig. Thinking about the number of people who were probably murdered cruelly in order to prepare this regenerative serum for him made him want to puke. But regardless of whether or not he was experimented on in the traditional sense, he was at least half-right. He didn’t want to be Hydra’s anything. He couldn’t be grateful for the things they’d given him. In fact, they just made him feel rather ill.  
“I know,” Steve said quietly and since Bucky didn’t seem to be responding to it anyway, Steve took his arm back. “I know.”


	51. ___

Natasha remembered when Bucky told her that her job was to go unseen. It was a long time ago, in Russia, and he had been teaching her some method of disarming someone or breaking their neck, she couldn’t remember and she figured it didn’t matter now. She had training to be a spy, not an assassin, but there were still things the Winter Soldier could teach her about fighting and about killing.  
“You do it and you get out,” the Winter Soldier said. “Your job is to go unseen.” Natalia nodded curtly and stared at his face. His eyes were distant and he seemed far away, despite his intensity. He always did.  
“I can do that,” she said.  
“We’ll see,” he replied and turned away from her, towards the door. He was leaving without another word. Natalia Romanova leaned against the wall, crossing her ankles, and watched him. No, not him, she watched his arm. It was fascinating. She often found herself staring at it, watching the metal gleam and the plates shift in such a way that it was nearly human, and yet too unnatural to be anything like it. Her curiosity was overwhelming, but to ask him to explain it seemed strange. He wasn’t someone to ask personal questions to. After having worked with him for over a week, despite her best efforts to charm him or infuriate him or even hurt him, the Winter Soldier was still an unsolvable mystery and a blank face. It frustrated her. He’d never even given her a smile. Honestly, he scared her, he scared her to death and she didn’t like that. For her own sake, she had to see his mask crack.  
“Hey!” Natalia cried after the Winter Soldier before he left the room and he turned back around, still holding the door open, his brow furrowed as he stared at her. He didn’t seem used to being called like that and his empty eyes struck fear in Natalia, so much so that she forced herself to steel her resolve and stare right back. She wouldn’t let him intimidate her. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said cockily.  
“I wasn’t trying to make you afraid of me,” the Winter Soldier replied, which sort of surprised Natalia. She had expected him to take her words as a challenge or an insult. Instead, he seemed confused. Refusing to be discouraged, Natalia changed the subject, pushing herself off the wall and sauntering towards the Winter Soldier. He watched her and let the door close beside him. She stopped as close to him as she felt she could come and looked at his arm.  
“What happened?” She asked. The Winter Soldier looked down, following Natalia’s eyes to his own metal prosthetic. She watched him stare at it as though he had just now noticed it, raising his own hand and examining it slowly.  
“What happened to my arm,” the Winter Soldier said and Natalia wasn’t sure if he was asking her or just repeating her question. She felt as though she ought to take a step back. He seemed borderline unstable.  
“Yes,” Natalia said. “What happened to your arm.” The Winter Soldier pursed his lips and stared blankly at his hand.  
“I don’t know,” he said and he sounded even a little surprised about this. Natalia stared at him.  
“What do you mean you don’t know?” She demanded. “You lost your whole arm, how do you just not know this?” The Winter Soldier looked up at her slowly, unnervingly slowly, and his eyes sent shivers all throughout Natalia’s body. He was horrifying.  
“I don’t know,” he said again, mumbling. Natalia took that step back now.  
“Don’t you think you ought to look into that?” She said and he looked down, back down at his hand. He never answered her. Instead, he dropped his hand and pulled open the door again, fiercely, swinging it, and left.  
The next day, before they began to work, Natalia found the Winter Soldier in the sparring room, leaning against the wall in the exact place she had been the day before, stretching out his legs like he had seen her do, and holding his arm up in front of him, staring. She entered the room cautiously, letting the door shut behind her and keeping her eyes on the Winter Soldier. He didn’t look up. He muttered something.  
“What?” Natalia asked.  
“It got ripped off,” the Winter Soldier repeated himself in his dead voice with his dead eyes, but speaking louder so she could hear, enunciating every word to the extreme, so each t and d felt uncomfortably sharp. Natalia stopped and stared at him.  
“You mean your arm,” she said and he nodded. He dropped his arm now, letting it swing to his side, although he continued to stare in the same place, unfocused and frowning.  
“That’s what they said,” he told her.  
“Did they say any more?” Natalia prodded him. “How did it get ripped off?”  
“They didn’t… They didn’t say. They wouldn’t say,” the Winter Soldier said slowly. He looked up at her now, focusing, looking directly into her eyes. His eyebrows furrowed and his mouth turned up in a pout. “You’d think…,” he started and then stopped himself.  
“You’d think what,” Natalia said and the Winter Soldier took a long breath.  
“You’d think I’d… deserve to know,” he said very quietly and his words chilled Natalia to the bone, and still did, especially now.  
“Yeah,” she replied. “You’d think.”


	52. Morning

When Natasha returned to the hospital the next day, Bucky took the first opportunity he could to get her alone and tell her about his and Steve’s discovery. It wasn’t necessarily that he wanted anyone else to know, but he felt scared and sickened and talking to Natasha helped him. And after all, she needed to know, she deserved to know. She’d stuck with him this far.  
“I feel…,” Bucky said, pacing the hospital room, his hand on the back of his neck, and starting again. “I didn’t want this. Steve says it’s a good thing and I guess it could be worse, but I feel like… An experiment, I dunno, I don’t like it.” Natasha sat on his bed and watched him go back and forth and she stood after he said this and stopped his pacing, taking him by the shoulders and turning him to face her.  
“I understand,” she said and wrapped him in a hug and he rested his cheek on the top of her head, his arm around her back and tried to breathe, tried to let himself be comforted. “I’m so sorry, Bucky.”  
“Do you think I should be grateful?” Bucky asked hollowly and Natasha squeezed him.  
“I think if you were anything but outraged about whatever Hydra did to you, helpful or not, I would think you had lost it,” Natasha said and Bucky let out a breath. After a minute, she let him go and he backed up and didn’t know how to thank her for listening to him, for always listening to him.  
Later that day, doctors approached him and took blood out of his hand and he was told that he could leave the hospital now, since he was better, and they would call him with the results about his blood in a week. Steve and Natasha were still wary about letting Bucky return to his apartment, but by his count, he figured he had already spent much too much time in a horrible hospital and he deserved time to sit comfortably in his own apartment. He would have that time, even if he had to fight off every attack possible, Hydra be damned.  
So Bucky returned to his apartment and Steve and Natasha joined him. They hadn’t exactly asked permission, but Bucky wasn’t about to kick them out. In the end, he determined, their presence was a comfort, as it had been in the hospital, and he became glad that they had followed him so closely. And after all, he remembered his promise to Steve. Steve could stay in his apartment whenever he wanted and Bucky wouldn’t say anything. While Bucky curled up on his bed in the next room, relishing the quiet of being home, Natasha made herself comfortable with the television on his couch and Steve accidentally fell asleep in Bucky’s armchair just outside his bedroom.   
When Bucky rose some time in the middle of the night that night, driven awake by the screaming electric pain in his non-existant left arm, he passed Steve, situated right outside his door with his head falling at an awkward angle. Bucky stopped and looked at him for a minute, pitied the crick he would have in his neck the next morning and gathered Steve one or two more pillows to fix the problem. Bucky learned, while resituating pillows under Steve’s head, that Steve was a very, very heavy sleeper.  
Natasha, he knew, was not, but he found her curled up on his couch, the TV still on, although it was muted. The colors it threw silently around the dark room was slightly unnerving to Bucky, so he switched it off completely and left Natasha in darkness. He did find her a blanket however, and then returned to his room, where he sat on his bed, his memory journal open in front of him, rubbing his left shoulder and staring frustratedly at the next blank page until the sun rose.  
When it became painfully plain to Bucky that he had nothing new to say in his journal that morning, he got off of his bed and began doing exercises to pass the time as the phantom pain began to subside. He wasn’t quite sure of the shape he was in and if he was going to work with Natasha towards finding Hydra, he had to be fit. It was hard, doing push-ups with only one hand, but he managed enough to feel good about himself and then moved on to different types of crunches he could remember until he heard groaning and stretching and waking sounds outside of his door.  
“Morning Steve,” Bucky heard Natasha outside his door. Steve yawned loudly. Bucky stood up and opened his door to see Steve confusedly pulling his pillows out from behind his head and Natasha standing next to him, wide awake, but her hair still messy and her eyes still a little puffy. She looked up at him and smiled and seeing her, just awake in the morning light, struck something in Bucky but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was. “And good morning to you too, cutie,” Natasha added and Bucky smiled a little. “What do you have in here for breakfast?”  
“Um, I think I had cereal,” Bucky suggested. “I don’t know, didn’t you stock the cupboards last?”  
“You’re stocking his cupboards?” Steve asked.  
“She insists,” Bucky replied and Steve laughed.  
“Whatever you say. Just be sure to make the me the best man at your wedding, ‘kay Buck,” Steve teased, rubbing his eyes.   
“Speaking of weddings, did you ever talk to that girl?” Natasha asked Steve.  
“Who, Sharon?” He asked, standing. Natasha gasped dramatically.  
“First name basis, this is good,” she said. Bucky watched them tease each other back and forth and followed them to the kitchen.   
“So Bucky,” Natasha said as she began pulling things out of the cupboards, finding the cereal Bucky had thought he had. “Are you feeling up to some work tonight?”  
“What do you mean?” Bucky asked, taking a bowl from the ones Natasha had pulled out. Steve began making himself some of Bucky’s cereal and Natasha shut the cupboard door.  
“I mean we have a mission to complete,” Natasha said and Steve started choking on his corn flakes.  
“What!” he exclaimed. “You’re doing that now? So soon?”  
“We’re actually really late,” Bucky pointed out.  
“Maybe I should go with you guys,” Steve said, setting his bowl down, concern on his face.  
“Steve,” Natasha said in a warning tone.  
“Natasha,” Steve said. “This is dangerous.”  
“Well, clearly, there’s not much else they can do to hurt me at this point, shy of chopping off my other arm,” Bucky said.  
“That is absolutely untrue, Bucky, think,” Steve said.  
“I’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Bucky replied, unsure of whether he should be offended at Steve’s lack of faith or flattered by his defensiveness.  
“Look, Steve, it’s hardly a question of whether or not it’s happening,” Natasha said. Then, to Bucky, she said, “I have the files we need in my apartment. I’ll go get them and be right back, okay?”  
“Okay,” Bucky said and watched Natasha leave. When they heard his front door shut behind her, Steve frowned at Bucky. “What?” Bucky cried.  
“Don’t you think you should just take some time to rest?” Steve asked and Bucky shook his head.  
“No, I told you, I feel fine,” he said.  
“I’m not talking about your ribs,” Steve said. “Well, that too, but I mean… In general. Why can’t you just wait and let us-”  
“Let you take care of me?” Bucky cut him off and Steve made a face and gave a small shrug.  
“Well, yeah, what’s so wrong with that?” He said and Bucky stared at him.  
“Because I can’t do that,” he said.  
“What is it then?” Steve asked. “Why do you feel any sort of need to do this? Is it revenge, is that it?”  
“Yes?” Bucky said, conflicted. “No? It’s just something I have to do.”  
“But what about all the things that could go wrong?” Steve demanded. “I can’t lose you again, Buck, you can’t go back to them again.”  
“I don’t plan on going back to them,” Bucky said.  
“I didn’t say it was part of your plan,” Steve said. “I meant they have sedatives that can take you down. They’ve done it before. Who knows how many times they’ve done it before and then wiped you.” Bucky took a deep breath, told himself to be okay, to breathe, and looked down, thinking.  
“The way I see it,” Bucky said slowly after a time. “Is that what matters is that Hydra is gone. At the end of the day, that’s what we’ve been fighting for, you and me, since the beginning. So this is something I have to do. And it’s personal. But I will never be their weapon again. I’ll die first, you can count on that.” Steve sucked in a breath sharply at the flippant mention of Bucky’s death. “Either Hydra goes down or I do.” Bucky added. This seemed to cause Steve some distress.  
“I felt the same once,” Steve said.  
“And you don’t anymore?” Bucky asked.  
“No,” Steve said. “No, I have you back. What matters is-”  
“Me,” Bucky said, almost disbelieving, and Steve nodded and Bucky stared at him and swallowed.  
“I,” Steve started. “I can’t lose you Bucky, please.” Bucky wanted to say something, to reassure him that it would all be okay and he would come out alive, but he realized he couldn’t say that for sure and he felt a particular emptiness about that, like he didn’t care whether he came back alive or not and then it hit him, as it had before, that he had already died alone in a rocky ravine decades ago-Steve was just still grieving and Bucky was just still moving. Then, they heard the door open and fell silent as Natasha entered the kitchen, a flashdrive and her laptop in hand. She stopped and looked at them, raising an eyebrow.  
“I sense tension,” she said.  
“We were just talking,” Bucky said.  
“Mhmm,” Natasha said, setting her laptop down. “Well, whatever. If anyone starts crying, though, I haven’t bought tissues since before the hospital and you might just be out of luck.” Steve laughed a little and rolled his eyes and Bucky cracked a grin. He appreciated Natasha’s disarming sense of humor, taking him away from his dark thoughts and the desperation in Steve’s eyes. He wanted distance from that desperation and he informed himself, as he often did, that Steve didn’t want him and didn’t miss him; who he missed was his childhood friend. Steve saw hope in the memories Bucky could scrounge up, that maybe, he wouldn’t have to lose his friend and that hurt Bucky, although it wasn’t like he had gone into this expecting to be loved anyway. He was a different and a dangerous person now. But Bucky forced himself still to stop thinking about it because Natasha was back and now wasn’t the time for dark thoughts. Now was the time for planning.  
“Alright, who’s our mission?” Bucky asked, leaning with Steve over Natasha’s shoulder as she lifted the lid of her laptop.  
“Let’s see,” she said.


	53. Frozen

Steve dreamt while sleeping in Bucky’s armchair right outside of his bedroom. He had dragged the chair up closer to Bucky’s room and sat right in front of the door, like a sentinel, like nothing would happen to Bucky again if Steve would just sit there and kept watch. But he was exhausted and the quiet buzz of the TV just one wall over slowly lulled him to sleep and again, again, in his head, he saw that train on that ravine. No, Steve thought miserably, tiredly. Not again.  
Nothing much was different this time. Bucky knew him and he was reaching for him, there was fear in his eyes and time slowed down, Steve himself slowed down as he tried to reach back. But something struck Steve there as he looked into dream Bucky’s face.  
“This is the last time you know me,” he said. “This is the last time you really recognize me.” Bucky made a face at him.  
“Then why didn’t you just grab me?” He said and then suddenly they were sitting together in that bar they’d found years ago and Steve looked down to see that he’d been doodling on a napkin and Bucky looked over at Steve, his eyebrows furrowed and he pursed his lips. “I would have caught you, if you were the one falling.”  
“I know,” Steve said and reached up to rub his face. “I know.”  
“Geez,” Bucky said, looking away and shaking his head, two flesh and blood elbows on the counter, a disgruntled look on his face. “This isn’t 1935 anymore, Steve, why are you still in my apartment?” And Steve seemed to forget that real-life Bucky had told him he wanted him.  
“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Is this selfish?” Bucky didn’t answer and suddenly, they switched again, they were on the that plane, sinking, freezing over. Steve could feel himself growing cold, clutching his shield over his chest. Not the freezing, he hated the freezing. Bucky was across the plane, standing and staring. He was in black and his hair hanging in his eyes and he was wearing his metal prosthetic, but his eyes still held the lightness of their childhood, and he was smirking like Steve hadn’t seen him do since before his death.  
“You know, Natasha’s really something else,” Bucky commented to Steve and Steve closed his eyes, overwhelmed. There was too much going on. The freezing nightmares didn’t collide with the Bucky nightmares too often, but when they did, he always felt particularly rough afterwards.  
“She is,” Steve agreed, his teeth chattering, because even in dreams where he was semi-lucid, he still felt the need to play along. “You’re in love with her.”  
“She makes me happy,” Bucky said with a cocky half-grin and a shrug of his metal shoulder.   
“I just want to be there for you, too,” Steve said. Steve didn’t know how to make Bucky understand that he was his very reason for living right now. Every breath he took here was unbearably dry, and cold and Bucky frowned like Steve knew he didn’t used to frown, like his face had just become harder, which meant that this wasn’t old Bucky.  
“I made you a promise, Steve,” Bucky said with his now ever-present frown and the desperate emptiness in his eyes. “You know I’m doing the best I can.”  
“I know,” Steve said and then, of course, they were on the train again and Steve watched Bucky fall and Steve stopped and looked at the train car where he was grabbing and frowned and looked back at Bucky, falling, and then Steve let go, too.  
Then, Natasha’s hand was on his shoulder and Steve jerked himself awake and looked at her, shaken.  
“Again,” Natasha asked in a whisper and Steve nodded.  
“Don’t tell... Don’t tell Bucky,” he whispered back and she looked over at his bedroom door and nodded.  
“Okay,” she said, then loudly announced, “Morning, Steve!” and Steve put his head back down mostly out of exhaustion and sadness than anything else and thought about his dream like a weight on his chest.


	54. Folder

The target was a man named Ruben Summers, age 52, in an apartment building just a frighteningly close walk away from theirs, but as Bucky had learned, he shouldn’t be surprised when he discovered his area of DC to be surrounded in Hydra agents. He knew it was no coincidence. Bucky joined Natasha as they found his apartment and waited outside the building.  
“When he leaves, we’ll go and start setting up cameras,” Natasha said to Bucky as they paced back and forth up the block. Ever since the first time they had gone out to dinner, Bucky had hesitated in offering her his arm, flesh or not, but this time, she laced hers through his and leaned into him as they walked. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure if that was because she enjoyed being near to him as much as he enjoyed being near her or because it made a good cover to blend in on the streets. Either way, he was simply glad they were linking arms.  
The target brushed right past them, his collar turned up and his eyes on the ground. Bucky angled himself and Natasha away from the man, making sure to use Natasha to hide his left side.  
“I’m not exactly inconspicuous,” Bucky had said before they left. “They’ll be on the lookout for a one-armed man.” Natasha frowned, thinking.  
“We’re going to have to work around it,” she said. “Try to blend in.”  
“Not that that wasn’t the plan to begin with,” he retorted and she gave him an exhausted expression that made him laugh a little.  
“Well, it’s the only plan we’ve got unless you can magic yourself up a new arm,” she said. Now, on the street, Bucky just tried to hide himself from the target and appear normal. Luckily, the man didn’t seem to suspect anything and before he knew it, Natasha had him by the hand and was dragging him back towards the building, fast.  
“I don’t think he’ll be gone long,” Natasha said. “We have to be fast. I’ll pick the lock, you stand guard.” Once they slipped inside, Natasha located the door quite quickly. It was a 134, and she dropped to her knees fast, whipping materials out of her sleeve and beginning to tinker with the door handle. Bucky turned and stood in front of her, his hand at a fist by his side and his feet spread apart, an unapproachable expression set in the frown on his face.  
“Tasha, hurry,” he muttered.  
“This lock is weird, he’s rigged it somehow,” Natasha replied through grit teeth. Bucky waited another second, looking up and down the hall.  
“Natasha,” Bucky said again.  
“James!” Natasha cried and then there was a click and the door swung open and Natasha was on her feet and inside in a hurry, before Bucky could even have time to question her use of his first name. He hurried after her, although his initial instinct was to stop and go slowly in case of attackers in the shadows, he trusted Natasha to know what she was doing.  
Inside, he found Natasha attaching the smallest cameras he’d ever seen into corners and walls and he watched her from behind as she carried on for several minutes.  
“Remind me what I’m here for,” he said and she turned around over her shoulder and smiled at him.  
“I just bring you along ‘cause you’re cute,” she teased and pecked him on the cheek as she passed him on the way to another camera-less wall. “And because you can help me reach the ceiling,” she added, waving him over. “Come here, can you reach this?” Bucky walked over and looked up at the corner where the walls and the ceiling met. “It would be a great angle to get,” she said. Bucky got as close as he could and reached, standing as tall as possible, but he still wasn’t quite there.  
“I think you could get it if I picked you up,” Bucky said thoughtfully.  
“That would be an easier feat to accomplish if we had four arms between us,” Natasha said and Bucky rolled his eyes.  
“Nonsense,” he said. “Come here, if you sit on my shoulder and I hold your legs and kind of stand like this,” he demonstrated, crouching. “You can get your angle.” Natasha looked at him skeptically and he raised an eyebrow. “Clock’s ticking,” he reminded her.  
“Alright,” she agreed testily.  
“Trust me,” Bucky said and helped Natasha situate herself, wrapping his arm around her legs tightly and standing slowly.  
“Okay…,” Natasha said and began to reach.  
“Have you got it?” Bucky asked, trying not to let Natasha know how much he was straining with the unequal weight.  
“Yeah, yeah, it’s right there…,” she said and then there was a click and they both froze. It was the door. He was back. Bucky knelt back down fast and put Natasha back on the floor, then standing and grabbing her shoulder and dragging her back with him into the shadow of another doorway. There were footsteps coming down the hall. Steve, watching on the cameras from Natasha’s laptop back in his apartment, was probably screaming right now and Bucky couldn’t blame him. There was only one way out, at least, only one way he knew, and that was to slip past the target and make it back to the front door without being seen. Bucky looked to Natasha, who was the expert here.  
This way, Natasha mouthed to Bucky, pointing into the darkness behind them, and then slipped away from him. Trying to step silently, Bucky followed. He wasn’t used to this. He was an assassin. If they needed the target dead, that would have been great, but instead they needed him both alive and completely oblivious. Bucky admired Natasha’s skill now in a hundred new ways.  
Through the dark doorway, they found themselves in a disheveled bedroom.  
“This isn’t going to get us back to the door,” Bucky whispered under his breath to Natasha.  
“It will, I promise,” she whispered back. “Now shush.” But as Bucky was following Natasha to another door across the room, he passed a desk and stopped. Strewn across the table were the contents of a file and there were pictures of him there. He looked down and picked up the top paper. It was old, yellowed, and dated back to 1945. Bucky stared and swallowed. There was information about him there, in scribbled handwriting on printed lines. He began scanning it, desperate, until Natasha noticed that he was lagging behind and went back for him. She pointed towards the door frantically.  
“It’s about me,” Bucky said, louder than he meant to and Natasha glanced back where they’d come from.  
“Shh,” she whispered. “Bucky, leave it.”  
“Look at this, this is about when they first… Took me,” Bucky whispered back. Natasha gritted her teeth.  
“Bucky, we have to leave now, leave it,” she demanded.  
“No!” Bucky hissed and then there were more footsteps near the bedroom door and Natasha’s eyes widened and she reached around him and grabbed his arm, yanking him away. He pulled his arm back from her for just a second because he needed it to scoop up the folder on the desk and the door handle was turning and Natasha grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him through the door and back out into the hallway, where she swung open the front door and slung Bucky out. Bucky stumbled out into the hall and regained his footing. He watched her shut the front door as gently as possible and then whirl around to him, rage in her eyes. He expected a quarrel, or a rant, but she said nothing and instead began stalking down the hall. She was silent until they reached the street.  
“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” Natasha asked as they walked back to the apartment and Bucky looked down at the folder in his hand and realized that he knew. But somehow, it had all just seemed more important at the time. It seemed like the most important thing and now, Bucky regretted it. He realized in Natasha’s unspoken words that they needed to replace this, if they could, and even if they managed it, their entire operation could have been destroyed before it even began. Then Bucky realized that the person who was going to replace the folder wouldn’t be him and Natasha, it would have to be Natasha alone. Not only was she mad at him now, but only she had the skills necessary to be discreet enough to get the job done right enough to give them any semblance of a chance. It was a sinking feeling, and a sickening one, and Bucky wanted to apologize a million times over. He was so sorry. He wished he could go back in time and undo it. But then, the contents of this folder… Bucky’s curiosity was killing him.  
Steve was waiting outside once they returned to the apartment, pacing and anxious. When he saw Natasha and Bucky approaching, he grinned and waved and took a visible breath of relief, but when they got close enough, he seemed to be able to tell something was wrong and his smile dropped. Natasha stopped before she entered the building and scowled at Bucky. He’d never seen her so angry.  
“I hope that’s worth it,” she said, glancing down to the folder in his hand and then turned, pushing into the building and leaving Bucky and Steve out on the street.  
“What happened?” Steve asked, bewildered, and Bucky raised the folder.  
“I stole this,” he said.


	55. ___

The Winter Soldier was an excellent fighter. Time and time and time again, he dropped Natalia and pinned her to the ground, his hand to her neck, his face blank. Natalia stared up at him, a pounding beginning to drum in her head, rippling out from the very back of her skull where he had slammed her head into the ground. He pulled away after a second, climbing to his feet and Natalia began to pull herself up as well, until the Winter Soldier did something she didn’t expect. He’d never offered her a hand up before, but he did now, extending his right hand and looking her in the face. She looked back and forth from his eyes to his hand, suspicious, and decided not to take it. She pulled herself to her feet and the Winter Soldier took his hand back, frowning.  
“Is that not normal?” he asked.  
“Not for you,” Natalia said. “What did I do wrong that time?”  
“You didn’t bring your leg back fast enough,” the Winter Soldier said. “If you move too slow, you’ll be grabbed.” Natalia frowned, thinking about this. Then, with no warning, Natalia swung her leg out again, high and fast and directly in line with the Winter Soldier’s head. His eyes grew wide and he just barely dodged. “Yes, like tha-” he started to say, but she kept going, slinging out a fist and getting him right in the jaw. The Winter Soldier stumbled back for a second, holding his face. Natalia stopped, pulling her arms back to her, and stared, afraid. The shadows about his face were too dark for her to tell what he was thinking. Was he angry? If he wanted to, she knew he could kill her. But when he looked up, he was smiling. There was a glimmer of something in his eyes for once, like a challenge, and he sprang forward, reaching for her wrists, but she pulled away and stuck out a leg and nearly tripped him, but he was prepared now and avoided her. They continued on like this, back and forth, back and forth, and she could tell he wasn’t going easy on her anymore, but they were both grinning widely and breathing heavily with the exertion and then, just for a second, his hand was on her shoulder and she grabbed it and twisted and he gasped as she held his arm behind his back and shoved him down. She was careful with his face as they both fell, making sure he didn’t hit himself too hard. She knelt over him, straddling his back, and released his arm. He pulled it back slowly, rolling his shoulder, and twisted his head to try to look at her.  
“That was good,” he said, smiling, and she moved off of him as he rolled himself over until he was flat on his back.  
“You went easy on me,” she accused teasingly, even though she knew he didn’t, kneeling next to his head and looking into his face, elated to have seen some sort of emotion there.  
“I didn’t,” he replied truthfully. “I have before, but I didn’t then.” He raised his arms and folded them behind his head, looking at her. She stared at him, relaxing his head on a metal arm, and laughed.  
“Is that even comfortable?” she asked and he scoffed.  
“No,” he said, his smile getting a little wider.  
“Then why do you do it?” she asked and he shrugged and pulled his arms back now, using them to push himself up to a sitting position directly across from her. He was taller than her and had to look down, even now when he was just sitting.  
“Ready to go again?” he asked.  
“Sure,” she said and he poised himself to stand again, then stopped and looked at her.  
“If I try to help you up, are you just going to stare at me again or what?” He asked and she laughed.  
“This time, I’m not even going to get up unless you help me,” she teased and he grinned, standing and when he offered her both hands this time, she took them and let him haul her to her feet.  
Before Natalia left the Winter Soldier in the sparring room alone at the end of their lesson, she stopped and looked at him.  
“I never got your name,” she said.  
“I think they call me the Winter Soldier,” the Winter Soldier said and Natalia rolled her eyes.  
“Some name,” she said. “Did your mom pick that out?” He frowned and shrugged.  
“I don’t think I have an ordinary name,” he said.  
“Everyone has one,” she said.  
“Not me,” he said and Natalia frowned now, not teasing or prodding, just concerned.  
“Where were you born?” she asked and the Winter Soldier stared at the ground. He was frowning again, deeply, and was silent for a long time.  
“I dunno,” he said.  
“How old are you?” she tried again, growing more and more afraid. The Winter Soldier shook his head slowly, swallowing.  
“I dunno,” he whispered. She almost asked another question, but he kept talking. “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Natalia watched him begin to pace, his face afraid, one hand on the back of his head and the other on his waist. “I don’t know, I don’t, I-I,”  
“Hey,” Natalia said, stopping him, and he looked up at her, his eyes watering. “Don’t worry about it, the not knowing, okay?” He swallowed and blinked and tried to breath. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll figure it out, okay?” He nodded slowly.  
“Okay,” the Winter Soldier said quietly.


	56. Past

Before Bucky could open the folder, once he and Steve had gotten back into his apartment and sat down, Steve stopped him, placing a hand over the top. Bucky looked up, questioningly, and Steve looked at him with worry in his eyes.  
“Are you sure you want to see this, Buck?” Steve said and Bucky nodded.  
“Yeah,” he said, but Steve still didn’t move his hand.  
“This could be painful,” he said.  
“I know,” Bucky replied.  
“There might be things you don’t want to remember,” Steve continued. “Or-”  
“Steve, please,” Bucky said exasperatedly.  
“I’m not done!” Steve cried. “The stuff in here…”  
“You don’t know what it is,” Bucky argued.  
“Neither do you!” Steve cried. “But we both know it’s not gonna be good. I just want to make sure you’re prepared.”  
“I am,” Bucky said and Steve slowly removed his hand.  
“Remember what I said about not cutting me out!” he added quickly as Bucky opened the folder. Bucky looked over at him.  
“I promised you, Steve,” Bucky said. “Now will you shut up and let me read the folder?” Steve raised his hands defensively and Bucky looked back down and took out the first sheet. There were old, faded photos of him clipped to the top. He looked emaciated. A close-up shot of his face showed his cheeks hollow and a sheen of sweat on his brow. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be lying on some sort of hospital bed. Bucky held the picture up and studied it and saw Steve out of the corner of his eye scrub his face with both hands and take a deep breath, but Bucky didn’t say anything. There was a date in faded pen on the back along with his name. The next photo was of his whole body. His left side was splattered in dried, dark blood and his arm was a stump wrapped in gauze. When Bucky went to read the paper they were clipped to, however, he discovered that it was written entirely in Russian. He looked over at Steve, who was squinting at the scribbled lettering.  
“Do you want to know what it says?” Bucky asked quietly.  
“Would you mind?” Steve asked and Bucky shook his head and began translating aloud.  
“James Buchanan Barnes. Project Winter Soldier. Scouts found the subject exactly one day after his fall,” Bucky read, his hand shaking and his voice not entirely steady either. “His left arm was lost just above the elbow and he was dying quickly, despite the-” Here Bucky stopped involuntarily, swallowed, and then went on. “Despite the serum, which had been administered during experiments some weeks earlier. Blood loss was great. He woke as we were lifting him away and tried to fight us, but he was too weak and, we suspect, the pain was too much. He fainted again soon after, which was lucky because we didn’t have the sedatives on hand to detain him.”  
“Wow,” Steve muttered and Bucky wanted to scoff. This wasn’t even the bad part. Bucky had been expecting all of this, he half-remembered this. He was scared for Steve now when they got to worse portions of his past. Bucky continued reading.  
“We have had Codename: Winter Soldier in our care for a week now. We are suspending his life while we make decisions regarding his future. We are currently putting maximum efforts into designing a new kind of arm to replace the one the subject lost. Grafting experiments have been performed, oh, oh no,” Bucky stopped, reading ahead, sickened, and looked away from the paper in his hand.  
“What is it?” Steve asked and Bucky took a deep breath, looking back.  
“G-Grafting experiments have been performed,” Bucky continued slowly. “On various prisoners taken from the enemy. Most have been fatal failures, but we believe a method will soon be found to efficiently fix the subject. Our current ideas involve a permanent metal socket to attach to a removable metal appendage.  
“In other news, we have decided enthusiastically to reopen Project Winter Soldier. We had been discouraged after the subject escaped, but now we believe that we can proceed uninhibited.” Now, the words were beginning to take a effect on Bucky as he read ahead. He could feel panic begin to seize his heart, despite the fact that he knew he was safe. His head was beginning to pound. He continued. “Research has been continued regarding Codename: Winter Soldier’s unnecessary memories, oh geez,” Bucky said and felt sick. “And, uh, and special machinery used in the field of brain surgery has been prepared. Fascinatingly enough, this special technology will be able to clear away physical portions of his brain, oh wow,” Bucky stopped and put the paper down and rubbed his eyes, taking deep breaths.  
“Are you okay?” Steve asked quietly and Bucky sucked in a breath and nodded.  
“Yeah,” he said and picked the paper back up. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  
“No, you’re not,” Steve stopped Bucky. “Do you want to take a break?”  
“We really can’t,” Bucky said. “We have to read it fast and try to return it. I’m okay, I can do it.” He picked the paper back up and kept reading stubbornly. “This special technology will be able to clear away physical portions of his brain and the regenerative serum in his blood will give him the ability to heal from it quickly and efficiently. Once our technologies are perfected, we will be able to begin making real use of the Winter Soldier.” With that paper done, Bucky dropped it to the floor and picked up the next one. What remained unmentioned, he remembered, were the hours spent screaming. The file would have him believe that he remained completely asleep the entire time, but that wasn’t true. Bucky had fuzzy, painful memories of lying strapped to tables and staring at the ceiling, straining and screaming and hyperventilating until a masked doctor came by again, and again and again and again, with a large syringe that put him back under almost immediately.  
The next paper Bucky picked up featured sketches of a machine he recognized. He averted his eyes and forced himself to breath slowly, normally. There were paragraphs about how the machine was able to burn away brain matter and how miraculous it was that Bucky would be able to stand and function afterwards. It made Bucky sick.  
“We removed large portions of Codename: Winter Soldier’s memory, and locked away others where he wouldn’t be able to reach them. We kept only what was necessary, but due to the technology’s newness and unfamiliarity, we couldn’t be positive what all is gone for good and how much is only locked, which is an unfortunate problem to be dealt with later,” Bucky read.  
“Does that mean…,” Steve said. “How much of it is just… Gone?” Bucky shook his head.  
“I have no idea. Hopefully not much,” he said. But if I’ve forgotten too much of you Steve, they will all pay. That’s another promise to you.  
There were more photos on the next paper. This time, he had his metal arm recently grafted on. Bucky remembered that. He remembered the burning flesh smell. The skin around the metal was red and shiny and puckering in the picture and Bucky became overly aware of the scars left around the metal of his shoulder as he sat there, just white lines and pocks now. This paper detailed the grafting process and how well it had gone, with “little to no resistance from the subject, presumably due to pain”. The next paragraph was of interest and Bucky began reading aloud.  
“Once the subject awoke, having full use of both arms, his first action was to strangle two on-site doctors to death.” Bucky frowned and sucked in a breath. He felt conflicted. His first instinct was to feel awful, to feel monstrous and horrid, but another creeping thought told him that they deserved what they got and he wasn’t sure whether to be disgusted by that or not. He glanced over at Steve to see how he was holding up and realized that Steve looked a little green. “You okay?” He asked and Steve nodded shakily.  
“You?” he asked and Bucky sucked in another deep breath.  
“As I’ll ever be,” he replied and continued. “Codename: Winter Soldier was detained and subdued. He is dangerous and unstable, but we remain optimistic that with training and conditioning, the Codename: Winter Soldier will become the deadliest and most dependable weapon in Hydra’s arsenal. He is a clean slate now, waiting for, ugh,” Bucky groaned and used his wrist to rub his eyes. “Waiting for Hydra to write a new future, oh geez.” Bucky dropped the papers and leaned back, his hand over his eyes, feeling dizzy. His hand was shaking violently now and his head felt like it was exploding, like a million memories were just pushing on the walls of his skull and he couldn’t make them stop. There was a long quiet and Bucky heard Steve pick all the papers up and put them back.  
“That was awful,” Steve said quietly. “That was disgusting. Bucky, I… I don’t know how to apologize.”  
“Don’t,” Bucky said. “Just…” Just be here. Just don’t leave me, just be here and grieve with me. The part of Bucky that always wanted to run reasserted itself again for the first time in a long time. Bucky wanted to face the pain and face his emotions fearlessly, but he had to admit that he was terrified and if he could run from it all and just run and run and leave the ground, he would. And it was such a freeing thought that as he sat there with his eyes closed, all he pictured was the relief and simplicity of the sky. He didn’t want this.


	57. Fax

Bucky walked over to Natasha’s apartment with the file in his hand and used the back of his knuckles to rap on the door. After a minute, he heard her approach the door and the lock clicked and she pulled the door open.  
“Let me put it back,” instead of you, Bucky said. Let me fix my mistake. Natasha looked up at him and frowned. She was studying his face.  
“You know you can’t,” she said.  
“Is there any way I can make it up to you?” Bucky asked quietly and Natasha looked away from his face and pulled hair out of her eyes and sighed.  
“You don’t have to, Bucky, I understand,” she said.  
“But I should have left it, I know that,” Bucky said quickly. “This,” he continued, waving the file in the air. “Could have ruined everything. I’ve put everything on the line.”  
“I know you have,” Natasha replied hotly. “But I understand, okay?” They stood there for a minute and Natasha gently took the yellowed folder out of Bucky’s hand and sifted through it, her face unreadable. Finally, she looked back up at him. “You look terrible,” she said.  
“Steve and I read the whole thing,” Bucky replied by way of explanation.  
“What did it say?” She asked.  
“Nothing, I guess, that we didn’t really already know,” he replied. “It didn’t even go that far, it stopped after they grafted my arm on.”  
“So you just tormented yourself with it,” Natasha said accusingly and Bucky shrugged. Then, Natasha gave in and wrapped him in a comforting hug. “Is Steve still over at your place?” she asked, her arms around his waist and her head on his right shoulder, where there was enough shoulder left to lay her head, and Bucky nodded. “Alright, go wait with him and I’ll be back in one minute.” She let him go and began to walk down the hall, walking backwards quickly so she could still see him. “Don’t think about it too hard, okay, Bucky?” She called after him as he watched her leave. “It’s in the past, and it’s never going to happen again.”  
“Thank you, Tasha,” Bucky said and she blew him a kiss over her shoulder as she turned on heel around a corner.  
Natasha read the file as she walked. It looked exactly the same as it had when the tables had been turned years ago and she herself had stolen it. It still had the same awful photos and information and she closed the top and looked away when she broke out into the street and began walking back to Summers’ apartment. He was there now, and there for the night. She would have to be stealthy. And she would have to find a place to lay the file where he could find it easily and believe that he himself had put it there and forgotten it. Natasha would have been nervous, but she couldn’t say this was something she’d never done before.  
She snuck through the window this time, using a bobby pin to undo the lock from the outside, and slowly climbed in. The lights were off, as it had been getting late, and Natasha assumed Summers was asleep. She found his bedroom again and slipped herself in noiselessly, keeping to the walls and the shadows. The lights were off and the blinds were closed and Summers lay on his bed, under covers, snoring. Natasha walked over to the desk and sifted around the other papers there, planning on scattering the contents of the file amid the other papers in an attempt to convince Summers that he was simply disorganized, but as she was doing this, something caught her eye. It was a printed out memo, some sort of fax, with the words Codename: Winter Soldier on them and she felt Bucky’s desperate curiosity in that moment. She set the folder down and picked up the paper, scanning it in a hurry.  
“Planned surprise attack next week…  
“helicopter lift…  
“sniper-like tranq darts...  
“...get Rogers and Romanoff out of the way first…  
“begin mind-wipe on helicopter before reaching pre-disclosed destination…   
Natasha clasped a hand over her mouth to muffle her own gasp as she read. She glanced back down at the man sleeping on the bed and felt her stomach turn. She dropped the paper, right back where she found it, and slipped out again, but before shutting the window and walking back to the apartment, Natasha looked up to the camera she and Bucky had placed together in the corner and stared directly into the lens, where she was sure Bucky and Steve were watching now, and frowned deeply, before turning to leave out of the window.  
They met her on the sidewalk and she grabbed them wordlessly and dragged them back upstairs.  
“Is there something wrong?” Steve asked nervously.  
“Are you still mad?” Bucky said at the same time.  
“We have a problem,” Natasha said simply and waited until they got back to Bucky’s apartment to speak again. Bucky shut the door behind him and Natasha looked back and forth from him and Steve. “They’re pulling out all the stops, they really are. They’ll stop at nothing.”  
“What are you talking about?” Bucky asked.  
“You,” she cried. “They’re coming for you again.”  
“Wait, how do you know?” Steve asked and Natasha began to pace.  
“It could be a trap, or a set-up,” she said. “Lets not panic, they could be baiting us.”  
“Natasha, for the love-” Steve started and Natasha cut him off.  
“I found this fax,” she said and began to explain.


	58. Promise

“Next Wednesday,” Natasha said. “They’re going to try again and it looks like this time, they’re not leaving without him.” Bucky swallowed nervously as he listened. “They’re going to get you and me ‘out of the way’ first, whatever that means,” Natasha said, gesturing to Steve. “I don’t think they want us fighting with him or going after him. And then,” Natasha turned to Bucky. “They’re going to shoot you with tranq, but from a distance, so you never have a chance to fight them off. Then they’re going to take you away and load you onto a helicopter and start wiping you before you even hit ground.” Bucky stared at the floor, his stomach doing flips at the thought, and crammed his hand into his jean pocket. There was a long silence and then Bucky looked up.  
“What are we gonna do?” He said quietly. His head was still pounding from the contents of that folder and he still felt shaken, still panicky. Why did this have to be so hard? Why couldn’t Hydra wait, he’d just barely gotten out of the hospital! But he knew why. This wasn’t a game, there would be no going easy. Right when he was down, that’s when they would hit the hardest. And oh were they hitting now.  
“Don’t worry, Bucky,” Steve said. “They’re not going to take you."  
"But what are we going to do, Steve?!" Bucky cried.  
"Hey, its okay," Natasha started and she reached out to touch Bucky, but he pulled away, feeling something choking him now, like a pressure, like a panic.  
"No, it's not!" Bucky cried. "They're just gonna keep coming! Why won't they just stop, why can't they just leave me alone!!" There was another silence and Steve swallowed audibly.  
“We can talk about this tomorrow, if you want,” he suggested and Bucky nodded weakly.  
“I’m sorry, I just… I can’t-I can’t” deal with this right now, Bucky tried to say but ended up cutting himself off. “I’m just gonna go to bed,” he finally said frustratedly, gritting his teeth and brushing past Steve and Natasha and, instead of going into his room, dropping exhaustedly onto his couch across the room and sinking into the cushions and closing his eyes. After a while, someone joined him, Natasha, it seemed, by the curve of her waist and the closeness of her heat, and she leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder. He looked over at her, closing her eyes as well, and then leaned back again, taking a deep breath. He didn’t have to be alone.  
That night, Natasha opened her eyes and checked on Bucky. He seemed to be fast asleep, his arm around her and his breathing steady. Steve had left for his own apartment hours ago. Natasha stood slowly, careful not to disturb Bucky, and pulled out her cell phone, walking into the kitchen where he wouldn’t be awoken by her whispering, then she dialed a number.  
“I got your message,” Natasha said as quietly as she could into Director Fury’s answering machine. “And I don’t understand. You keep saying you have eyes on us and you’re watching us, but where were your eyes when he was being dragged out of a window? Where are your eyes when there are repeated threats on his safety?! Shouldn’t you be protecting him? You can spare an agent here and there to give us some back up over here, Fury.” Natasha was pacing, she was raising her voice. She realized this now and stopped, looking over to Bucky. He hadn’t moved. She swallowed and turned around. She wasn’t going to get mad, not now. “There’s been another threat that I’m sure you’re ‘already aware of’. We don’t know what to do.” Natasha didn’t want to admit out loud that she was afraid, but she was sure he would be able to hear it in the way her voice shook. “Get back to me soon.”  
Natasha hung up and set her cell phone on Bucky’s kitchen counter, returning as silently as she could to his side on the couch. As she settled herself back into him, he stirred a little and looked over at her with tired eyes.  
“Who was that?” He mumbled. She looked down and back up at him, inches from his face.  
“Did I wake you?” She asked and took a piece of hair out of his face, smoothing it back gently. “It was Fury. I was leaving a message.”  
“It’s fine,” he said back, about her waking him, and she watched the way his mouth pursed. “I’d rather be awake tonight anyway. What did you say?”  
“I…,” Natasha sighed. “I was telling him about the threat. I want him to send us some sort of back up.”  
“Will that help?” Bucky asked.  
“It better,” she replied and he closed his eyes again in an almost relaxed gesture, but his eyebrows were furrowed.  
“I’m scared,” he whispered to her.  
“I know,” she said, staring into his face. “I am, too.” Then, after a second, she said, “Were you-”  
“Having nightmares?” Bucky finished for her, shifting. He blinked exhaustedly and sucked in a breath. “Not as bad as I thought I’d be.”  
“Is it about that folder?” Natasha asked and he nodded.  
“Thank you for staying with me,” he said. “Thank you.” He looked over at her and his eyes had so much hurt and he suddenly seemed overwhelmed again, she could tell.  
“Shhh,” she said. “Shush, it’s nothing.” She looked down and could feel him gingerly and apologetically kiss the top of her head, but reached up and caught his face before he pulled away, cupping her hands around his cheeks and looking up and kissing him directly on the mouth. “We should go out to dinner again once this all calms down,” she said.  
“You can imagine that far into the future?” he scoffed.  
“I don’t think it’s as far as you believe,” she replied. He hesitated.  
“I can’t promise you anything, Nat,” he said back quietly.  
“Why?” Natasha asked, even though she knew why. He didn’t expect to live through this, of course. She felt anxiety seize her heart.  
“Because…,” Bucky said. “I just can’t.” Natasha sat up and turned to him.  
“James Buchanan Barnes, you promise me that one day in the future, when you’re safe and we’re happy, you’re going to put on a nice suit and I’m going to wear a dress and we’re going to go to the most expensive restaurant in DC and make fools of ourselves and kiss each other until we’re both red, you promise me that right now,” Natasha said, trying not to let her voice shake even though she could feel her emotions stick like a lump in her throat and Bucky looked at her like a wounded puppy.  
“Natasha,” he said quietly.  
“James,” she replied, swallowing. “I’m not giving in until you promise me. And you might be surprised at how persistent I could be.” Bucky stared at her breathlessly, shaking his head. “I know what you’re thinking, I can see it in your eyes, that if you promise me, you can’t die, but that’s what I want, okay, you cannot die.” Bucky seemed to be thinking a million things at once and promising her wasn’t one of them. He just looked at her. She sucked in a shaking breath and sunk back down. “Please promise me.”  
“I…,” Bucky whispered, as though he were going to do it, but then he stopped and was silent. “I’ll promise you tomorrow night.”  
“Okay,” Natasha whispered back, even though she wasn’t sure he would do it.


	59. Freezing

When the sun began to come through the windows in front of the couch, Bucky woke again. He didn’t feel particularly rested, but Natasha was still snuggled next to him and remained fast asleep and the sight made him smile, despite how heavy his eyes felt and how he didn’t think, by the way every time he blinked, he saw memory-erasing machines and grim-faced doctors, that he would be having a Good Day today. He noticed she didn’t have any blankets and he wondered if that bothered her as he carefully stood, unwinding her from around him and stepping away. She stirred a little now, rubbing her eyes, and he remembered, his shoulders drooping, her insistence that he promise her he wouldn’t die. She didn’t understand, he couldn’t make her understand, that death could be his only option in the end, and he couldn’t promise that away. That could be like promising to himself that he might have to become Hydra’s unthinking, inhuman killing machine again, physically alive and emotionally dead, and that was not something he could do. But she didn’t understand and he didn’t know how to explain himself.  
Bucky would have started some sort of breakfast for himself, but he didn’t feel hungry. He would have begun exercising, as he had taken to do in the mornings, but he didn’t feel as though he had the energy. Instead, he began rummaging through his kitchen, pulling out ingredients for omelets, something Natasha liked.  
“Good morning,” Natasha’s voice came from couch.  
“Morning,” Bucky said quietly as he cracked eggs into a bowl, which was sort of difficult one-handed, but he managed just barely. “Are you cold? We never got blankets.”  
“Cold? In Bucky Barnes’s apartment?” Natasha said and laughed. He watched her stand and stretch. “Impossible.” Bucky obviously did not have one hand to hold the bowl of eggs and another hand to stir, but he'd gotten used to these minor annoyances and had learned to work around it. This morning, he set the bowl on the counter and pushed it up against the wall so he wouldn't have to hold it, and stirred the eggs that way. He consistently refused to admit defeat.  
“I guess I keep it pretty warm in here,” Bucky replied.  
“Warm enough to unfreeze, what is it Tony says? He calls you soldier-cicles?” Natasha said and turned to him, smiling and Bucky only looked down and shrugged.  
“I just don’t like it cold,” he admitted.   
“Well, that’s okay,” Natasha said. “Neither does Steve. Together, the two of you could deem a sauna too chilly.” Bucky stared into the eggs as he stirred, thinking about this.  
“I didn’t know that,” Bucky said and there was a long quiet.  
“That’s not your fault,” Natasha said and Bucky clenched his jaw.  
“Yeah,” he replied after a while. He began thinking about everything else he didn't know about Steve. He didn't know his favorite food, or what colors he liked. He remembered next to nothing about their childhood. Bucky thought back to the hospital, and how good it had felt to sit down and talk to him for once, be straight-forward and uninhibited. He wanted to do that again. And the board games played over his hospital bed, the sketches Steve showed him before he left for a few hours. It had felt comfortable in a homey sense, like things were set right in both of their worlds that they could sit down and be at ease with each other. Bucky wanted to do that again. He wanted to remember everything that had been cut out of him. He wanted to relearn the things that were gone.  
"What are you thinking about?" Natasha asked and Bucky looked up, realizing that he had been silently stirring eggs for a very long time. He set down the fork and poured the whisked bowl into a saucepan.   
"Nothing," he replied quietly. Natasha accepted this answer and crossed the room to join him in the kitchen. Just like everything else, he’d discovered, cooking omelets one-handed wasn't too much of a struggle, but it wasn't easy either. Natasha knew better than to take it from him, though, and she only leaned across the counter and watched. "We should call Steve over and start making plans," Bucky said after a while.  
"I'll text him," Natasha said and reached across the counter for her phone and Bucky wondered if he should start making breakfast for Steve, too. It irked him that he didn't know what Steve would want.  
"Here, this is for you," Bucky said as he pulled a plate out of the cupboard and set it down by the pan.  
"Oh!" Natasha said and she sounded touched. "Well, thank you. What are you going to eat?" Bucky shrugged.   
"I'm not hungry," he said.  
"Are you sure?" Natasha asked as she scooped eggs out of the pan. "We could order something." Bucky just shrugged again and Natasha looked at him and sighed. He knew what she must be thinking. She told him not to take that folder, but he had and now he felt empty again, dead again, and all the memories he could gather were those of being tortured and abused. It most certainly wasn't going to be a Good Day.  
Steve was over eventually and he insisted to Bucky that he had already eaten breakfast and Bucky didn't have to make anything. Bucky sulked to himself because it still bugged him that he wouldn’t have known what to make him anyway.  
“Well, I think it goes unsaid,” Natasha started as soon as she had finished her eggs and Bucky and Steve had settled down at the table next to each other to discuss plans. “That we have to get Bucky out of DC before Wednesday.” Steve nodded slowly, thinking, and Bucky frowned in disagreement, but he didn’t say anything yet.  
“No, you’re right, that’s priority,” Steve agreed. “But I don’t want that to be the end of it.”  
“What do you mean?” Bucky asked and Steve was thinking again. As Bucky stared at his face, he saw in his patchy memories of childhood, a younger Steve with black eyes, missing teeth, bruises. I could do this all day, Bucky heard in his head. “Wait, no,” Bucky started again, thinking. “You don’t want to turn around, do you? You’re… You want to stay here and fight them.”  
“You know it as well as I do,” Steve replied, defensively, as though he expected to have to argue. “You said it yourself. If we don’t show them that we’re going to stand up, they’ll never go away.  
“I know,” Bucky agreed and Steve looked a little bit surprised. I think I learned that from you, Bucky thought. About fighting. About being strong. “But their plan is pretty solid, how are we going to do this?”  
“Well, uh, I was sort of thinking you’d be a state or three away,” Steve said. “Safe.” And Bucky frowned deeply and shook his head.  
“No,” he said. “No, I want-I have-to be here. This is my fight.” At this, both Steve and Natasha erupted into protests and Bucky leaned back a little, shocked.  
“I can’t watch myself break your ribs again!” Steve was saying.  
“We almost lost you,” Natasha was saying over him.  
“But this time, we’re prepared!” Bucky cried. “This isn’t me screaming through the walls to Natasha anymore, we can attack them and be ready.”  
“I don’t want to take any chances,” Steve said.  
“We have to take chances,” Bucky replied, gritting his teeth. “Natasha, you say you’re persistent, but you just watch me, okay, because this is something I’m not backing down about.”  
“And what if they grab you?” Natasha cried in response. “What then, huh?”  
“If we’re well prepared, they won’t,” Bucky replied, even though he had to admit, at least just to himself, that it was an all too real possibility and it made him feel sick. “Don’t you two do this a lot? Aren’t you part of some vigilante group?” Steve looked confused.  
“What, you mean the Avengers?” He asked.  
“Yes,” Bucky replied. “Yes, them.” Steve looked over at Natasha as though this was a sudden realization.  
“That’s a good idea,” Natasha said and suddenly, she had her phone out again. “I’ll call Clint.”  
“I think Sam’s wings are repaired, we could ask him, too,” Steve suggested.  
“Then I can stand my ground,” Bucky said with some finality. “They can’t scare me away from my own home.” Natasha stood up, her phone to her face, and began to walk to the door.  
“I’ll be right back,” she called, while Steve furiously texted Sam at the table. Bucky watched him and it was silent for a moment, except for the clicking sounds. He began thinking again about the things he didn’t know about Steve.  
“Sam’s the man with the wings,” Bucky asked.  
“Yes,” Steve replied.  
“He’s the one I broke then,” Bucky continued and Steve looked up and nodded slowly.  
“Yes,” he said again. “But-”  
“It wasn’t my fault,” Bucky cut him off, feeling somewhat spiteful. “I know. I’ve heard.” Steve set down his phone and looked at Bucky.  
“Are you okay?” He asked and a million biting responses flashed through Bucky’s head. He settled with saying, “No.”  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asked gently and Bucky looked away, his face hard. He looked back again quickly.  
“You remember that time when I was in that hotel and you came over and told me things you knew about me?” Bucky said fast and Steve nodded.  
“Yeah,” he replied. “What about it?”  
“I want you to do that again,” Bucky said. “Except about yourself.” Steve looked a little taken aback.  
“What do you mean?” He asked.  
“What should I know about you?” Bucky asked. “Tell me. I’m sick of waiting to remember things that might be burned out of me for all we know. I’m sick of… Of not knowing these things. So tell me.” Steve blinked at him in surprise.  
“Well, okay,” he said. “What do you want to know?”  
“What do you like to eat?” Bucky asked, because it was an easy question, and because he had been wanting to know that morning as he made Natasha breakfast. Steve thought for a minute.  
“Pie,” he said, as though he hated admitting it and Bucky almost smiled. Even to Bucky’s barely functional brokenness, the joke was too easy.  
“Apple pie, though?” He teased and Steve grinned at him.  
“Shut up,” he said.  
“Oh say can you see,” Bucky mumbled and Steve laughed loudly. “Captain America’s a punk,” he kept singing softly the words in tune and couldn’t help but smile a little himself.  
“I know, I’m cheesy,” Steve chuckled.  
“Okay,” Bucky said, taking a breath and thinking. He couldn’t get over the feeling that he shouldn’t have to ask these questions, but here he was and there were all the questions that led to empty black space in his head. It made him feel like he’d betrayed Steve. “What is your favorite… No, better yet, I know. Why don’t you like the cold?” Steve’s smile dropped and Bucky thought maybe he’d done something wrong. “Natasha mentioned it. She said you keep your place hot, too.”  
“Yeah,” Steve said, shifting his shoulders a little. “Well, you probably know as well as me, right? Seventy years frozen kind of makes a guy wary of the cold.” Bucky frowned at Steve, concerned.  
“Yeah, I guess,” he agreed and then a sickening thought hit Bucky. “How, uh… How long did it… Take you to freeze like that?” Steve looked like all the blood had drained out of his face. He shrugged one shoulder.  
“A day?” He said. “Two. I think it was the serum. It wouldn’t let me just die, or stop. So I just sat there and, uh, shivered.” Steve tried to laugh it off, but Bucky could tell that that day or two had been pretty awful for Steve.  
“Seconds,” Bucky said and Steve looked at him, confused. “It took me seconds to freeze, every time. I hardly knew what was happening.” He swallowed. “I can’t imagine… Days.”  
“Well, it’s nothing compared to what you-” Steve started to say, but Bucky stopped him.  
“No, hey, no. It’s not nothing, okay?” He said. “I understand. That’s… awful.” Natasha re-entered the room now, hesitantly, like she had heard that Bucky and Steve were discussing something almost private, almost personal, and hadn’t wanted to interrupt.  
“Clint says he’s in,” she said quietly. “He’s just waiting for us to cue him now.”  
“Great!” Steve said loudly, putting on a cheerful smile and Bucky watched him go from dark and haunted to Sunshine Steve in seconds flat, which impressed him. Bucky realized that must be the real, fundamental difference between them now. Bucky suffered very, very publicly, red-faced and humiliated and hurting. He didn’t know any other way because he barely knew himself. But Steve suffered silently, on the inside, and the cracks in his armor were few and hair-line thin. He was unobtrusive and unassuming. This is a first, Bucky thought. I’ve never watched anyone bleed out with a smile before.


	60. ___

Natalia waited for the Winter Soldier in their private sparring rooms the next day, but he wasn’t there. He didn’t show up the next day either, or the day after that, and Natalia couldn’t help but think that it had something to do with the questions he couldn’t answer about himself the last time she’d seen him. On the fourth day of the Winter Soldier’s mysterious disappearance, Natalia decided to go looking for him. The compound was a large place, but there were rooms unspoken of in the darkest corners there that she thought would be a good place to start.  
The first few rooms were empty, mostly dusty storage rooms and empty barracks. But the further Natalia crept, the more apparent it became people had been down there recently. The lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling were new and there were scuff marks on the floors and walls. Natalia was briefly afraid of what she would find while looking for the Winter Soldier.  
As Natalia was about to give up and turn around, however, she found something. Not necessarily the man she had been looking for, but something. It was a small room at the end of the hall, with machines and filing cabinets that weren’t caked in dust and a doorknob that was too shiny to not be suspicious. Natalia crept inside and the first thing that caught her eye were the words Codename: Winter Soldier on a table. She was in the right spot.  
Natalia picked up the papers and began to sift through them. There were pictures of the Winter Soldier, and a name-James Barnes. Natalia crammed everything she’d found into the folder on the desk and carried it out.  
The next day, Natalia waited in the sparring room once more for the Winter Soldier, and this time, he came. He looked different, though. He moved gingerly, like he could feel bruises with every step, and his eyes had lost the small something she’d seen in them earlier. He approached her, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and didn’t offer her his hand.  
“You look like hell,” Natalia said bluntly. The Winter Soldier didn’t respond, so she continued. “James.” There was a spark now in his face and he stared at her.  
“I’m supposed to spar with you again today,” he said.  
“Does that mean nothing to you?” Natalia asked.  
“What, sparring?” He replied.  
“Your name, James,” Natalia said and pulled the file she’d stolen out of her jacket, sliding it across the floor to him so it hit his foot and stopped. She watched James look down and slowly reach to pick it up.  
“What is this,” he asked.  
“Read it,” she instructed and slowly, James sat down, cross-legged, like her, and opened the folder. “It’s awful,” she warned him and James didn’t respond. She watched him read the whole thing and when he finally looked up, he was shaking. “Do you remember any of that?” She asked and he shook his head. He looked down and she waited as he read it again. “I told you everyone had an ordinary name,” Natalia said. “So this is yours.”


	61. ___

The worst day for James Buchanan Barnes in Hydra’s care came after the torture and the pain and the constant fear. It was something bigger than that, in his head, while he sat there, strapped to a metal chair so tightly the leather bit his skin. In was several weeks into being captured that Bucky realized that no one was coming for him. This wasn’t temporary, he would never be saved, this was his life now. He had to live with this and then die because he wasn’t getting miraculously rescued in the night by a super soldier-ed Steve with a shield and no one knew where he was and he was probably presumed dead, but he wasn’t dead, he was there, behind enemy lines, tied down and screaming. That day was the worst day because that was when the hope began to fizzle out of Bucky’s eyes and out of his heart. He had no hope, he’d never had a hope. He knew that now. So maybe there was a certain sort of sick relief in the deepest parts of him when they wiped his mind. At least that way, he couldn’t remember all the ways he once dreamt he would be saved.


	62. Self-Sacrificing

The test results of his blood came back rather confused, as Bucky had expected them to, the next day.  
“We don’t understand exactly what makes your blood so unusual,” the paper said. “But it definitely is strange. If you’d like us to do more tests, we can be contacted at-” But Bucky threw the paper away before he was even quite finished. It didn’t tell him anything new.  
He met Steve and Natasha at Steve’s apartment that day. He had been thinking the previous night about plans and helicopters and fighting back and something occurred to him. They could have the upper hand in this situation, if they played their cards right. If they could use this information and play along, Bucky realized, they might be able to follow the helicopter back to Hydra’s base. Or, at least, get more information on where to find them. Either way, if Bucky could somehow go along with their plan for a while and ignore the way he felt like throwing up when he thought about it, maybe they could advance their position.  
“If they’re pulling out all the stops,” Bucky said to Steve and Natasha over Steve’s coffee table. “Why shouldn’t we? We can take this to our advantage,” Bucky continued. “We could follow that helicopter back to wherever it came from and maybe learn a thing or two from this.” Steve and Natasha stared.  
“That’s brave of you, Bucky,” Natasha said finally in a quiet voice. “Clever, too.”  
“Absolutely not!” Steve cried loudly. “What are you thinking?”  
“I’m thinking we find where they planned on taking me,” Bucky said, undaunted. “And show them what we’re made of.”  
“I don’t know,” Natasha was saying. “That’s risky. What are you going to do, just let them take you aboard, pretend to be out cold?”  
“Don’t you think the idea has merit?” Bucky asked.  
“No, it does,” Natasha agreed.  
“There’s too many things that could go wrong!” Steve cried. He seemed panicked now that Natasha was agreeing too. “Bucky-”  
“So lets work out the kinks,” Bucky interrupted him. “Maybe this way, we can get my arm back.” That was a hopeful thought. Hydra had tried to control him again when they took his arm, tried to claim his very body. He wasn’t going to let them do that. He wanted his arm back.  
“But what if something goes wrong, there’s too much on the line!” Steve replied.  
“How could we not use this information to our advantage?” Bucky cried in response.  
“We are,” Steve said. “We’re getting you to safety.” Bucky stopped, halting the rapid-fire responses between him and Steve. He ground his teeth, clenching his fist and looking away for a moment to gather his temper. He needed to make Steve understand. He looked back now and responded slowly, in a low voice.  
“But this is my fight,” Bucky replied.   
These are my nightmares and my tormentors.   
This is my hell and I need to wash it away myself.   
Bucky believed he understood now a little of what Steve felt when Bucky defended him again and again years ago, fists up and tough as nails, but too small to do any damage. Bucky had once felt overwhelming desire to protect Steve, to fight his battles for him. It was a feeling that lingered, that he caught ghost glimpses of at times when he remembered snippets of their childhood. Now, it seemed as though their roles had switched and Bucky felt somehow shameful about it. I had him on the ropes. This isn’t about me.  
Right. Cause you got nothing to prove.  
Bucky could feel memories beginning to brim around the edges of a dam in his mind and he didn’t know what he would do if it burst. Thinking, he sighed at Steve, who was searching his face, a deep concern in his eyes.   
“You can’t take these risks,” Steve said. “You can’t put everything on the line as though we’ve got nothing to lose.”  
“But haven’t we, though?” Bucky replied darkly, darker than he’d meant to, staring unblinking into Steve’s eyes, his voice gruff. Steve stared at him and Natasha let out a long breath, leaning forward on the table. Bucky didn’t realize how much he meant it until he’d said it. He really had nothing to lose, other than his freedom, but he would fight to the death for that and death it may be. He had accepted that.   
You don’t want to lose me, but geez, Steve, can’t you see you’ve already lost me? A long time ago. There’s nothing else left to lose now.  
Steve looked down and scrubbed his face with both hands again like he did when he was upset or overwhelmed and his eyes were growing red. Bucky realized that he knew that Steve had always done that. He even did that when he was a kid. Huh, Bucky thought, watching him. Funny what brings back memories sometimes, bits and pieces, dripping over the dam. It was beginning to give Bucky a headache.  
“Look,” Bucky said, breaking the silence. “We get your friends with the wings in on this, work out a foolproof plan, and we end up better off than we started. I want to do this, okay?”  
“You’re sure you’d be comfortable with it?” Natasha asked quietly and Bucky nodded. I’ll have to be.  
“Yes,” he said and she looked at him as though she wanted something from him. Oh, he realized. She still wanted that promise. He saw again in his head the picture she had painted of the two of them while she curled up under his arm, her warmth and presence comforting him. He wished he could promise her. Bucky stood abruptly, his chair scraping loudly on the floor, overwhelmed in an instant with how he was constantly disappointing, consistent in the fashion of letting them down, and his head was splitting and both Natasha and Steve looked up, following him, confused. All Bucky knew was that he wanted to leave. He wanted to run.  
“What’s wrong?” Natasha said.  
I can’t promise you, Bucky thought.  
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m going home.”  
“I thought you wanted to talk about this?” Steve said, standing too, as Bucky began to back out of the room.  
I can’t remember the person you used to love, Bucky thought.  
“We will later,” he said. “Goodbye, Steve.” And Bucky whirled around and hurried to the door, slamming it behind him solely because of the momentum he was already picking up, and breaking into a run.  
The Winter Soldier walked. He was unconflicted and unworried. He was dangerous and deadly and chaos aligned. But James Buchanan Barnes, the one after the Winter Soldier’s hellfire and decades of massacre, was none of these things. Bucky ran.


	63. Demons

“It’s like I’m handing you over to them.”  
“It’s not like that at all.”  
“I can’t watch you get taken away.”  
“We’ll be completely in control,” Bucky said. He rubbed his face with the heel of his palm, still holding his flip phone in his one hand. The flip top was being difficult; it was only attached now by one red cord that Bucky figured must have been a pretty important cord because the phone still worked. He was exhausted. He and Steve had been debating, arguing, all night. It had been midnight, and then one, and then two, and then Bucky had thrown his phone at the wall in frustration, which ripped off the flip top, and called back an hour later to find Steve still very awake and still very upset. “We have a plan, it’s a great plan, we’ll run it by Natasha in the morning-”  
“Bucky, I’m begging you,” Steve said.  
“And I’m not giving in,” Bucky replied. There was a long silence and Bucky sighed deeply, considering whether or not to say what he was thinking, of the slivers he remembered. “You remember… All those years and you’d pick a fight with anyone and everyone?”  
“Not… Not everyone.”  
“Yes everyone, you punk, I dragged you out of fistfights with probably all of Brooklyn,” Bucky retorted in a fashion and with a truthfulness that almost surprised him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t meant to say it, but the way it sounded coming out of his mouth sounded different, like Bucky 1.0, like a glove that just didn’t quite fit right anymore but he didn’t regret it, not entirely. Even if the information, the actual substance, did surprise him a little. He wondered what dark corner, what deep depth underneath the dam he’d dragged these words out of.  
Steve seemed to think the same thing and he was silent. Bucky scrambled to recover.  
“What I mean is, you’re a fighter, Steve. Always. I don’t… You know I don’t… Remember much, or even enough, but those fights happened so frequently that I remember several.” It was like the memory of it was built into him, like muscle memory, throw a punch, kick a fella, get Steve out of this and act like it’s no big deal. Well, it was always a big deal and he was bringing it up now. “I wasn’t like that, exactly. But you…,” Bucky began to realize that he was going to have difficulty getting the words out now. “You. Taught me what it means to fight back.”  
“This is never what I wanted,” Steve said and he sounded hollow. Bucky almost laughed.  
“Trust me, this,” he said and even though he was on the phone, he gestured to himself, up and down, waving the broken phone in the air and snapping it back to his head. “This is not what I wanted either. But it’s damn well what I got.” Steve sucked in a breath, pained or else surprised at Bucky’s sudden loudness. He had to be brash about this, about the past and about what he had become and about this, now, this plan that he would fight for. After all, it was brash enough, red-hot and obvious enough, even when he tried to suffer silently. He wondered if he would feel the same again in the morning. “Steve, this is…” He started again. “Alright, there’s a lot to it, it’s complicated, but this? This is me trying to live up to you, okay?”  
There was another pause.  
“Are you there?” Bucky asked and Steve, was he crying? He let out a shaky breath into the phone.  
“I’m here,” he said.  
“Are-are,” Bucky said, alarmed, dropping to sit on his bed from where he had been pacing. “Are you okay??”  
“I’m fine,” Steve said loudly. “Go on, what were you saying? Why… Why do you want this?” Bucky found that having two arms would have been nice right about now because his first instinct was to lean over his knees with one elbow on his leg to prop up his head and the other to hold up the phone, but he had to move over now, uncomfortably, and sit up straight, no matter how much he wanted to hang his head and close his eyes. He wanted to call Steve out on the way he sounded upset, but he still wanted to leave him his dignity. Bucky took a breath and considered something.  
“Can I come back over?” He asked quietly. “Or you come here?” Steve hesitated and Bucky didn’t blame him.  
“Of course,” he said finally. “Get over here.” Bucky snapped his phone closed and threw it on the bed, grabbing his coat as he left his apartment, trying to forget how self-conscious he was of the empty sleeve, hanging at his side, and began to think about exactly what he was going to say to Steve. It might be easier face to face, or else it would be so, so much harder. Bucky wondered if the ambiguousness of the phones wasn’t better, as he walked across the street, doubt gathering quickly. Steve was a catalyst sometimes, a break in his dam and Bucky had trouble looking at his face during conversations like this, the ones that roughed up parts deep inside him like sandpaper, until he was bleeding the very words out of his mouth.  
Either that would happen, or Bucky would look at Steve and, as he did sometimes, he would see a friend.  
Steve was waiting at the door to let Bucky in and his face was still very red, although he had clearly dried his eyes. Bucky stood in the doorway and stared at him. What did he see today?  
“We were talking,” Steve said, as a way of instigating the conversation again, but Bucky couldn’t let go of his red, swollen eyes. He sighed and stepped forward and threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders and Steve seemed to crumble just a little bit into his one-armed hug and squeezed him back, with a desperation that told Bucky that Steve had to remind himself that Bucky really was there. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to reassure, he wanted to apologize, he wanted to brush it all off. He remembered Steve at the hospital, looking heartbroken, asking why they couldn’t grieve together. Well, they were now. They stood there, hugging in the doorway for a while, silent, until Steve seemed more okay and he pulled away and rubbed his eyes and stepped aside to let Bucky in.  
“We were talking,” Bucky replied once Steve shut the door and they both walked over to the couch, sitting together in an almost slow and tender way, like it was late at night, which it was, and they had both forgotten how to hurt the other, which Bucky wondered if this also was not true.  
“And what were you saying?” Steve asked and Bucky stared at the rug, thinking hard.  
“I have to do this because… It’s something you would do,” Bucky said and swallowed. “These are my schoolyard bullies, okay? This is my hell, my demons. It’s for me, I’m doing this for me, I need the…” Bucky was doing good, he was doing great, but he didn’t admit that to himself, not now when he choked and suddenly the words weren’t there to describe his emotions again. He smoothed back his hair and tried again. “It’s-it’s like, uh… Like I’m trying-”  
“You’re trying to make it right,” Steve finished for him. “Like you’re proving something.”  
“To myself,” Bucky added and was glad that Steve had been able to find the words for him. “You can’t fight this fight for me, Steve. But… But fight it with me?” He asked, looking over and Steve smiled at him with watering eyes and nodded.  
“I understand,” he said. “Of course I’ll fight with you.”


	64. Scars

Wednesday was approaching quicker than Bucky had imagined it would and he was becoming nervous. However, he didn’t confide his fear in either Natasha or Steve because he felt that he had no room to complain or be afraid. He had suggested this plan, and detailed it, and insisted, absolutely insisted, that they go through with it and now to admit fear would be like admitting some sort of premature defeat. He had to be strong. So Bucky bottled it up, the way his stomach turned and his hand shook because this plan was an intimidating one, and hid it from Natasha and from Steve when they saw him. They were ready. He had to be ready as well.  
Natasha visited that day, as she did most days. She brought him a new jacket, with the entire left sleeve cut off. They had been in the process of doing that to all of his long-sleeved clothes, so that he wouldn’t have to pin them up awkwardly anymore, or else leave the sleeve hanging, but this jacket looked new. She walked in wearing it, her uncovered arm looking almost cold in comparison, and she slipped it off and onto him.  
“Does it fit?” She asked. He shifted in it, feeling the fabric.  
“Where did you get this?” He responded.  
“That outlet mall, remember?” She said, brushing off his shoulders and adjusting the collar. “Is it comfortable or not?”  
“It’s very comfortable,” Bucky replied. She smiled, her eyes downcast as she studied the fit on him.  
“Good,” Natasha said. “It looks nice on you.”  
“Thank you,” Bucky said, for a thousand reasons, and she looked up into his face.  
“I thought you were needing something new,” she said and he thanked her a second time. She laughed and stood as tall as she could to kiss his face. “Of course,” she muttered. He rested his hand gently on her hip and she shifted over and began to kiss his mouth, slinging her arms around his neck. They stood there for a long time, kissing each other and muttering delightedly back and forth and Bucky’s only regret was that he didn’t have two arms to wrap her in closer to him, but as he was thinking this, he felt something unusual under Natasha’s shirt, by her waist, some sort of scar, and it felt big.  
“What happened there?” He asked out of concern, kissing her again, but she pulled away and he took his hand back quickly, afraid that he had crossed some line or made her uncomfortable. Natasha looked down at her waist, frowning, then pulled up the corner of her shirt to reveal a large white puckered scar. Bucky gasped. “It looks like you got shot,” he said.  
“‘Tis the life of a spy,” Natasha said and looked up at him with a smile, stepping closer to him again and clasping her hands around his waist. “Everyone shoots you.”  
“Sounds like an interesting story,” Bucky said and Natasha stared at him for a long time and Bucky thought maybe he was missing something.  
“It’s a very interesting story,” she said. “Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”  
“So do you expect me to just live with this?” Bucky asked and Natasha’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.  
“With what?” She asked.  
“This,” Bucky said, looking down into her face. “This thing you do.”  
“I don’t do a thing,” Natasha said.  
“Yes, you do,” Bucky replied adamantly. “I’ll say something or do something and you get this sad look on your face and make these confusing statements. Like you’ll ‘tell me someday’. Am I doing something wrong? Do the things I say make you upset?”  
“No, no,” Natasha said, shaking her head.  
“Then what is it?” Bucky asked. “You do expect me to just live with it then.”  
“Yes?” Natasha said in a questioning tone. “Yeah, I guess… I guess I do.” Bucky was quiet for a minute, thinking about this.   
“I’d appreciate a little honesty,” he said finally and Natasha smiled a little.  
“You sound like Steve,” she said.  
“What, you do this to Steve, too?” Bucky teased and she laughed.  
“I do this to everyone,” she finally admitted, and then repeated herself. “‘Tis the life of a spy.”  
“Sounds to me like it’s not such a fun job,” Bucky said and she shrugged, pulling away from him and walking into his bedroom. He followed her.  
“It has it’s merits,” she said and opened his closet, beginning to sift through the clothes hanging there for shirts that still needed mending. Not that her sewing was any better than his. “There’s usually hot boys involved,” she said, winking playfully at him.  
“Oo, then you really got the short end of the stick this time,” he teased back, realizing now that Natasha had full control of the conversation, like always, and he didn’t quite mind, except that he still didn’t understand that haunted look in her eyes. He supposed he would learn in the end, once she felt comfortable enough to confide in him. For now, her flirting was keeping his mind off of Wednesday and he couldn’t complain about that. Even still, he was beginning to feel frustrated. “Next time, go for the guy with two arms and no evil organization on his tail.” Natasha looked back at him with a frown for a moment and then continued looking through his clothes.  
“While I think we could all do without the evil organization,” she said. “Your arm really doesn’t make you any less attractive. You’re not less because of it, okay?” Bucky felt rather struck by this statement, not in a good or a bad way at first, just in a striking way, like he didn’t expect, and he reached up across his chest and hooked his fingers inside the metal socket, hot with the heat of his body, almost just for something to hold onto, and a lump grew in his throat. An overwhelming part of him wanted to show her the scars, the sickening way the metal sunk into his flesh and he didn’t know why he wanted to show her, because the chances of her still finding him attractive after that were slim, but he supposed he wanted to be up-front with her and the way she asserted to him that he was handsome, not even in spite of, but including the loss of his arm, felt deceptive on his part.  
“Here, look at this,” Bucky said and Natasha turned around as he pulled off her jacket and stripped off his t-shirt and angled his body so she could see his entire left side. He was scared, watching her, and felt his stomach drop like the floor had gone out under his feet, studying her face for signs of repulsion. Steve had told him that past Bucky had not been afraid to talk to women and approach them, that he had had some form of confidence, but all that had changed now and Bucky didn’t try to tell himself he was desirable anymore. “You have little bullet holes,” Bucky said, his voice more strained in the air than it had sounded in his head. “Interesting stories. I have this.” Natasha looked up into his eyes almost pityingly. He didn’t want pity.  
“Bucky,” she said.  
“I have a lot of scars too, okay? No interesting stories, though, because I don’t know where most of them came from. But this one,” Bucky gestured to his left side. “I know where this came from. And it’s hideous. It’s unnatural, it’s repulsive, I know it is. You don’t have to tell me that I’m handsome with this, or even besides this, because I know I’m not. And now you do, too.” Grinding his teeth, Bucky turned around and grabbed his shirt off of his bed almost spitefully, angry with himself, with the fact that he was broken and cheapened by this, he didn’t want this!, and began to pull it back on over his head, until to his surprise, Natasha stopped him, her hand on his wrist, and he turned and she set her other hand down on what was left of his left shoulder, over the hot metal and the puckering scars. He again felt that impulse to pull away because he didn’t want her touching him like that, there where he suddenly became inhuman. He realized that he felt repulsed by himself.  
“James Buchanan Barnes,” Natasha said, looking into his face with a hard expression and Bucky put his hand down, feeling suddenly exhausted, not bothering with his shirt if she didn’t want him to. “Don’t tell me you believe that.”  
“I’m not going to lie to myself,” Bucky replied hollowly, miserably. He wasn’t desirable and that was that. Knowledge of that fact was why Natasha continually confused him so. He didn’t know why she kept returning to him and making him feel wanted. He was convinced it was because she didn’t fully understand that he wasn’t worth the trouble. Maybe now he could tell her. He wasn’t going to lie to himself about that, and about this, too-that he loved her too much to deceive her and the guilt was too unbearable. “I’m not going to lie to you. I’m… I’m not” worth your time. “I’m missing an arm, I’m missing who knows how much of my brain, I’m-I’m probably never going to be okay. There’s so much… wrong with me, that’s not even a conclusive list! You deserve…”  
“What?” Natasha demanded, staring into his face.  
“You deserve,” Bucky said and pulled himself away from her, unable to be close to her, turning away a little and smoothing back his hair and clenching his fist. “You deserve someone… Just, better. Better.” Natasha took a long time to respond, and when she did, it was in Russian and Bucky realized that he, as usual, barely noticed the switch.  
“If I searched for the rest of my life,” Natasha said quietly. “I would never be able to find a man more worthy than you.” Bucky sucked in a shaking breath. “And certainly not one that I could be more in love with. How can I show you that you are an absolute miracle?” Natasha approached Bucky and slung her arms around him from behind, resting her cheek on his bare back. “You aren’t broken.”  
“Then what am I?” Bucky replied in Russian.  
“You’re in pain,” Natasha said. “And I’ve dealt in pain, James, it’s hell. You were given more than you could ever deserve. But you’ll-we’ll-get through it. Together. And you will be okay.” They stood there for a long time in silence and Bucky rubbed his eyes and swallowed away the emotions building up in his throat like something choking him. He loved how she could make him feel wanted and worth things, and he also hated it because when she was gone he felt like a fool again for thinking he could learn to live with himself.  
Because it was more than this, it meant so much to Bucky. More than his handsomeness, which really mattered very little to him now, Natasha was reasserting to him that he was desirable and worthy in every way he thought he wasn’t, which did happen to be all of the ways. He wasn’t broken because of the things done to him. He wasn’t cheapened. He wasn’t made less.  
“You really think that,” he said.  
“Absolutely,” she replied.  
“And you aren’t, you don’t,” he choked a little, giving a really proud effort not to cry, and stopped to pull himself together. He hated himself. “You aren’t disgusted.”  
“By you?” Natasha said and squeezed him. “Never.”


	65. ___

Steve was a fighter before he was a defender. He uses a shield now, and he protects those who can’t protect themselves, but it wasn’t always like that. Steve learned how to defend and he learned it from Bucky, even if Bucky was only slowly learning it himself.  
Steve was eight, and he was little and outspoken and he liked to draw and these things made him stand out as an easy target. He got pummelled almost everyday after school by the bigger boys, who liked to stomp on his drawings and call him mean names. Steve was graceful about it, however, especially for a little boy. He didn’t yell or cry, which frustrated the bullies further. Steve stood there and he took it like a champ. He gave the bullies a level eye, like he’d learned from his uncle, and raised his fists and let them all come.  
Steve didn’t know what was different one day, but there were more kids in that alley behind the school, and more jeering shouts. Steve felt his fear intensify--intensify, yes, because it most certainly was there to begin with. It had always been there, but he was smart enough not to show it and brave enough not to act on it. He didn’t know how he was going to come out of this fight. Certainly not well, he never came out well, but Steve Rogers was entirely too aware of the ease at which he could be killed, by any given thing, and a large group of frustrated third grade boys suddenly proved a big enough threat. He didn’t want to lose his life here, but he knew at least it wouldn’t be for nothing. He was fighting for his own honor. It was better, at least, than dying on a sickbed. Anything was better than that.  
So again, Steve ground his teeth and raised his fists.  
“I could do this all day,” he told the kids. “Try me.” He was rewarded with a hard punch to the jaw and he thought he felt something inside crack. Was it a tooth? As Steve fell, kicks began to find their way to him, hard and painful and he scooted away and tried to pull himself to his feet, until the kicks stopped and a shadow fell over Steve.  
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, ya bastards?” The voice said. “I’ll take you all on, ya finks, you jerks, ya twits, I can-” Steve looked up and watched the boy get socked in the middle of his heroic insult-slinging. The boy didn’t even stop to register the hit. He grabbed the other kid by his collar with one hand and drew back with the other and-BAM. The boy stumbled back, holding his mouth and groaning. Steve scrambled to his feet and the crowd of kids in front of them were still, stunned. The boy standing in front of Steve was blowing on his fist cockily, like a smoking gun in the movies. “You wanna end up like Petey, here?” The boy asked, pointing over at the hit bully, who was crying and sniffing now.  
“You knocked a tooth!” Pete cried. “I’m gonna tell my ma!”  
“What’s she gonna do?” The boy replied and laughed. “She gon’ come beat me up? I’ll sock your mom one, too!”  
Because mothers are not to be insulted, the kid received a hail of fists from various sources around him now, but he dodged them all and threw up his own fists in defense.  
“Look,” the boy said. “This shrimp behind me can’t put up a decent fight to save his life. You all get off no worse for wear, amiright?”  
“I can too fight,” Steve tried to reply, but the boy shushed him over his shoulder.  
“Shut up, I’m saving your dumb life,” he replied. Then, back to the crowd of bullies, he continued. “You can hit him all day! But you can’t hit me cause we’ll both come out with some bruises, and I promise you’ll have more than me. You should go find some other second grader to beat up ‘cause I’m not letting you beat up this one.” This dose of logic seemed to make sense to the collection of bullies, because after this, despite the fact that the kid hadn’t really done much besides hit a tooth out of Pete MacGregor’s mouth, the bullies scattered. When the alley was finally clear, even of the crying Pete, the boy turned to Steve with a wide, charming grin. “You’re welcome,” he said.  
“I didn’t ask for you help,” Steve said spitefully. He was sort of embarrassed now. He had to have a third grader fight his fights for him. He could have done it himself. And even if he couldn’t have, he would rather have been given more bruises. At least he’d done it all himself. The boy frowned at him.  
“Yeah, well, they were gonna split you open,” he replied.   
“I was managing,” Steve argued.  
“No, you were not!” the boy said back angrily. “And you should be thankful that I was here.”  
“I don’t need no third grader doing my fights for me,” Steve said.  
“I think you do.” The boy held out a hand for shaking. “What’s your name?”  
“Do not. And it’s Steve,” Steve said and shook his hand, firmly like his uncle taught him. “What’s yours?” The boy made a face.  
“If I tell you, will you not tell anyone else?” He asked.  
“On my honor,” Steve said.  
“James Buchanan Barnes,” the boy whispered. Then, loudly, he continued. “But everyone calls me Bucky and if you know what’s good for you, you will, too.”  
“That’s not a bad name,” Steve said.  
“Yeah, it is,” Bucky replied. “Try livin’ with it.”  
“Well,” Steve said, beginning to gather his things up off the ground. “I have to get home. Bye Bucky,” he said and began to leave.  
“Hey, wait,” Bucky cried and Steve stopped to let Bucky catch up with him, although he was certain that he needn’t have. Bucky could have caught up to him anyway. “You should stay with me,” Bucky said.  
“Why?” Steve asked. “So you can fight all my fights?”  
“Someone’s gotta do it,” Bucky replied and began walking with him. “You can’t.” Steve glared over at him.  
“I can, too,” he said back defiantly and Bucky looked at him angrily.  
“Why won’t you just admit that you can’t fight?” He cried. “Just say ‘gee, thanks for savin’ my life, Buck, wouldn’t have made it without you’!”  
“Cause I would have!” Steve yelled. “I do it all the time and I don’t even know who you are, so stop trying to help me!” Bucky glared at him angrily. They had stopped now, in the street, and had turned to each other, both staring angrily.  
“Would not have,” Bucky said tauntingly and Steve let out a roar and dropped his books and jumped Bucky. They tumbled to the ground and Steve sat on Bucky’s chest and hit him. He landed at least two good punches in Bucky’s face until Bucky grabbed his arms with a grip stronger than Steve had suspected and threw him off. Steve practically flew through the air, but Bucky grabbed him and threw him down, pinning him to the ground and beating into his face with a ferocity. When Bucky finally stopped and stood himself up, dusting off his clothes spitefully, Steve rolled over on the ground, groaning. His whole face was pulsing and he could feel blood. “You should have, uh,” Bucky said, almost apologetically. “You should have squared your feet better. And then you went too slow, you can’t let me grab you.” Steve groaned again in response. Bucky reached down and grabbed Steve’s hands and hauled him to his feet. “You okay?” He asked. He was definitely apologetic now. Steve made a face at him, then nodded.  
“I’m fine,” he said. Bucky threw his arm around Steve and tried to make it all look like nothing, which Steve appreciated as much as Bucky did. He was humiliated. He had been beaten twice in one day.  
“What’re you having for dinner tonight?” Bucky asked, which was a weird question.  
“I dunno,” Steve replied.  
“Well, my mom makes the best spaghetti, so you should come over and eat some with us,” Bucky said. As an apology, Steve realized.  
“Okay,” he said, frowning. “But you’re a real jerk.” Bucky just laughed.  
“And you’re a punk,” he said. “I guess we fit together.”


	66. Backfire

Wednesday came and the first people to go were the snipers, up in the buildings across the street, right where Bucky had predicted they would be. Steve and Bucky waited in Bucky’s apartment until there were five red dots on the wall next to them from each sniper’s gun and Natasha contacted them through their earpieces.  
“The snipers are out,” she said and Bucky pressed the piece closer to his ear in order not to miss a single word, seated in his living room, facing the door, leaning with his elbow over his knees. He made eye contact with Steve across the room, sitting in darkness like Bucky had suggested, holding his shield up.  
“Are Fury’s replacements ready?” Steve said.  
“Yes,” Natasha replied. “They’re all in position. I’ll join you two soon.”  
“Be careful, Natasha,” Bucky said hurriedly before she clicked out and Natasha hesitated.  
“I’ll be fine, Bucky,” Natasha said, her voice static over the speaker in his ear. “You be careful.” Then there was a click and she was offline. Bucky looked up to Steve again and Steve smiled tiredly back at him. Now all they had to do was wait.  
“How are you holding up,” Steve asked quietly after a minute and Bucky shrugged, shifting and sitting up taller in his chair.  
“Great,” he lied.  
“You’re gonna be fine,” Steve said reassuringly and Bucky appreciated that he first tried to comfort him versus reminding him that Steve had discouraged him from this plan in the beginning. “We have complete control and I’m going to be right here.” Bucky nodded.  
“I know,” he said. I trust you. But I can’t stop myself from feeling sick. “Thanks,” Bucky managed to add and Steve looked down.  
“Don’t worry about it,” Steve said, and looked back up, half smiling and there was something Bucky didn’t quite recognize in his eyes. “Til the end of the line, right?” Bucky sucked in a breath, feeling suddenly sicker than before, looking down and fighting off the way he could still see Steve’s face under his own fist in that falling helicarrier. That is, until he realized that Steve was waiting for him to say it back, or at least acknowledge him, so he looked up and started to say something, to say, “Right. ‘Til the end of the line.” But that was when they both heard the clicking of the doorknob beside Steve and suddenly Bucky’s front door burst open and men in black uniforms with guns swarmed in and Bucky leapt up out of his chair, his words dying in his throat, his knees bent, his fist up, but he didn’t need to attack because upon seeing him awake and ready, all of the men froze. Their apprehension gave Bucky an almost sick sense of pride, like for once, he was glad to be someone so dangerous and unstable as to make an entire group of armed attackers hesitate. Then the red dots on the wall focused and there were blasts from behind Bucky and several of the men with the bigger guns fell. Steve jumped in now, grabbing two guys from behind and throwing them down. Chaos erupted and guns began to blast. Bucky threw up his arm to shield himself from the hail of bullets, mostly from guns aimed at him with the knowledge that he could heal quickly enough to still be useful. Through the storm of gunpowder, Bucky advanced until he reached the closest attacker and yanked the gun out of his hands, turning it in his fingers expertly and pressing the barrel up against the man’s head, all within a second. As he pulled the trigger, there was a flash of blue to the left that he caught just out of the corner of his eye and Steve was shoving him to the side, shield up, deflecting at least five bullets that had been heading straight for Bucky. Steve looked back at Bucky, who was catching his balance, gripping the gun in his hand tightly.  
“Getting shot isn’t part of the plan,” Steve called back to him.  
“Thanks for the heads up,” Bucky replied cheekily and Steve grinned to himself, looking forward again and continuing to fend off each man. They stood back to back, an unbeatable force, until all of Hydra’s attackers lay at their feet, with either a shield to the face or a bullet in the head. There was something Bucky liked about the arrangement, about fighting back to back with Steve. It felt familiar and it felt right. As the last man fell, Bucky took a deep breath and turn back around to face Steve, tossing the gun back down. Steve looked over at him. “Here comes the hard part,” Bucky said.  
“I’m right behind you the entire time,” Steve said. “Me and Tasha. You’ll be fine.” Bucky started nodding, rubbing his clammy hand on his pants leg, and stared at the ground. His nerves were beginning to get to him, until Steve placed a hand on his shoulder and Bucky looked back up and Steve smiled.  
“Til the end of the line,” Bucky said and his voice was choked like he hadn’t meant it to be. Steve looked concerned now.  
“Buck, if you don’t want-,” he started and Bucky cut him off.  
“No,” he said. “No, I do. I… This is the best way. I trust, I-I trust you, okay?” Bucky said, laboring through the way his tongue tied and he found it difficult to speak the words. Steve stared at him and Bucky could see his mind whirring.  
“Bucky? Steve?” Natasha’s voice came over Bucky’s earpiece and Steve took his hand back to press his own piece.  
“We’re here,” Bucky said.  
“The van’s out front, Bucky,” Natasha said. “They’re getting nervous. I think the gunshots scared them. Can you hurry?”  
“We’re already ready,” Bucky admitted, but he didn’t move.  
“You can do this,” Natasha said to him. “You can, I believe in you.” Bucky started nodding again, but stopped himself because Natasha obviously couldn’t see. He took a deep breath, settled himself.  
“Don’t,” Bucky said, into his earpiece and to Steve. “Don’t let them…”  
“We’re not going to let them do anything,” Steve said fiercely.  
“Bucky, you have to hurry,” Natasha said and Bucky moved, stepping over the bodies and to his open front door, leaving Steve behind and walking down the hall, out to the front, to the sidewalk, shaking violently but still moving, and he spotted the van. Men surrounded him, there were confused shouts exchanged and he was grabbed roughly, his arm twisted painfully behind his back, hands on his shoulder and his neck and waist on his left side. Someone had his head from behind, shoved his head down, pushed him forward. Bucky felt his stomach heave and he had to remind himself that he was in control and Steve was here and he wouldn’t be taken. He just had to make them think he was theirs again.  
“I thought he was sedated!”  
“Did he fight off all of Green’s team?”  
“Have you got him? Hold him steady-”  
“Why is he staring?”  
“Nothing to see here people, just an arrest, move along.”  
“The snipers had all the sedative, that stuff’s too expensive to just sling around like regular tranq, we’ll have to tie him up or something.”  
Bucky concentrated on breathing in, breathing out, no shaking, no panicking.  
Steve is behind me.   
Steve is here, he’s here, I’m not alone, we’re in control, I’m in control.  
Steve is here.  
Bucky was shoved into the van and men tied him up with cords. His arm was secured to his side and his legs were tied together.   
“Did we bring his arm?” Bucky looked up, suddenly taking a lot more interest, suddenly almost even hopeful. It sure would be easier to fight with two arms.  
“No, we’re going to reattach it after he’s been wiped.” Of course. Bucky leaned back again against the van wall, watching the men warily, hatefully. He began to think about how he was going to get out of these cords by the time they made it to the helicopter platform.  
Steve was coming. He would be fine. Bucky breathed in deeply. This wasn’t permanent. He breathed out. This was temporary. He would be fine.  
The van ride wasn’t silent, but Bucky didn’t like listening to the men. He drowned out their words with thoughts of how Steve and Natasha were watching him and that he was safe and maybe it would be nice to one day take Natasha out to dinner again and maybe Steve could teach him how to draw and everything would just be okay. He would be okay.  
Then, there was a small humming in his earpiece. Earlier, in the struggle, the men hadn’t noticed it there as Bucky had suspected they would and Bucky listened hard, surprised and trying not to show it on his face. They hadn’t discussed talking to him while he was in the van. This was risky.  
“Bucky?” It was Natasha and Bucky felt relief wash over him, hearing her voice. She grounded him. “I don’t know if you still have this on, you probably don’t, and I know this is a risk.” Discreetly, Bucky leaned his head to the side so he could use his shoulder to push the button on the piece and coughed so Natasha could hear him. None of the men noticed, thankfully. “Oh, Bucky,” Natasha said and her voice sounded relieved. “Don’t do anything conspicuous, you can just listen, okay?”  
Okay, Bucky thought.  
“Buck! We’re coming, we are right behind you, we can see the car.” It was Steve and Bucky leaned back and closed his eyes, just listening to them now.  
Hurry, he thought.  
“You’re so brave, Bucky,” Natasha was saying. “Just a few more minutes, we’re almost to the airport, then we’ll join you as soon as we can.”  
“We’re not gonna leave you alo-,” Steve was saying when suddenly, a shadow fell over Bucky and his earpiece was torn out.  
“What is this?” The man demanded. Bucky stared at him.  
“It-it was,” he struggled to think. “Um, a Bluetooth thing.”  
“What, like for a phone?” One of the guys asked and Bucky nodded and then jumped, startled, as the first man threw the piece on the floor of the van next to him and ground his heel into it. Bucky stared at the pieces blankly and the men around him began to mutter to each other and Bucky sat out the rest of the ride, the panic mounting, feeling now almost more deeply alone than before.  
The van stopped and the men dragged Bucky out, ripping off the cords around his feet, and he could hear the sounds of the helicopter blades turning but he couldn’t see because one of the hands on him again was the one shoving his head down and he realized that he was beginning to lose the cap on his panic. This time, they didn’t walk him to the helicopter-he didn’t let them. They dragged him, holding him up by his arm, his heels making scuff marks and his breathing beginning to get faster and more hollow. He fought the hand on his neck and looked up, searching the sky for the man with the wings until he was shoved down again. He hadn’t seen anything. The sky was empty.  
They’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming.  
Steve’s gonna be here.  
The helicopter was big. It wasn’t a helicarrier, of course not, but it was still made to contain more people than Bucky had suspected, almost like a small plane. He was brought on through the wild wind screaming of the helicopter’s blades and he was beginning to have difficulty remembering that Steve promised to save him. They didn’t let him go once the doors were shut behind him and instead, they kept pushing him and he fought again, twisting, and looked up and a jolt went through him when he saw that machine. He had underestimated the effect it would have on him as the helicopter began to rise. Flashes began to assault him, pictures of every time he had sat down in that seat and felt the searing pain, watched in his own head as things went dark one by one, like lights off in a house. Bucky began to scream and then-then he remembered losing hope.   
Decades ago, when he realized Steve wasn’t coming to save him like he had before, that’s when Hydra had really made a victory. And that memory was so real at that moment that Bucky wasn’t sure when and where he was for a second. He was completely lost in the darkness of his mind, with the bindings around his body and the too-tight hands of his handlers on him, gripping him, dragging him, pushing him. He was losing hope all over again.  
Steve wasn’t coming, no one was coming, he was lost to Hydra, he was gone like a snuffed candle, and there was no hope to speak of, no chance, no sliver of an idea of a prayer that he would be saved. Bucky exploded, rearing back and headbutting someone, feeling sparks in the back of his head where he had made contact and behind his eyes. With the strength of pure adrenaline and fear and panic, Bucky ripped himself away from the hands holding him. His feet were up, he was kicking, he heard cracking, he wasn’t sure if it was his bones or someone elses, but he kept throwing himself around, kicking, screaming, refusing to be taken. He was trying to shimmy out of the straps and cords around his arm, trying to pull himself out. Everything was panic. Then, Bucky was slammed from behind, the force of five men’s bodies tackling him to the ground and his chin hit the floor. There was a distinct crack and a firework show of pain in his face. He was stunned for a minute as the fireworks burst in front of his eyes, so much so that he barely realized the hands were pulling him up, tying his legs back together, until it was too late.  
Bucky was hauled, shaking and screaming and weeping and thrashing, onto that machine.  
He was strapped down.  
The machine began to close in over his face.  
There was no hope and rooms in his head were beginning to go dark.


	67. Fear

Steve and Natasha kept talking into their microphones, frantically, pretending to themselves that everything was okay. They’d asked Bucky to give them some sort of sign that he was alright multiple times and all they’d received was radio silence.  
“He must just be too carefully watched,” Natasha suggested to Steve as she sped down the highway after the grey van, one hand on the wheel and the other to her ear. “Maybe he doesn’t want to jeopardize anything.” Steve stared at her. He had a bad feeling.  
“Buck, answer me right now,” Steve demanded loudly. “I don’t care if they’re actually looking you in the face and will watch you respond to me, we can work around it, just tell us you’re-you’re-” Steve cut himself off, he was yelling, he was panicking. The van on the road in front of them was silent and Bucky was silent. “Something’s wrong,” Steve cried. “Go faster, we can take them over now.”  
“We’re almost to the airport,” Natasha said.  
“Natasha!” Steve yelled and Natasha grit her teeth.  
“Sam and Clint are in position, they’ll be able to get to Bucky faster than we can,” she said.  
Steve leaned back in his seat, his entire body tense, feeling for the first time in decades the inability to breathe. If Bucky was hurt, Steve would never forgive himself. If something had gone wrong, Steve would never let go. If Bucky was somehow otherwise impaired or traumatized or even mildly inconvenienced, Steve was already hating himself in advance for it. He had said yes, he had agreed to this. He was supposed to protect him. Yet again, Steve couldn’t measure up and Bucky paid the price. Steve wanted to hit something. He would never be able to make it up to Bucky. Apologies were already a moot point.  
“Get us there,” Steve said darkly, gruffly, and Natasha let out a breath. “Fast.”  
They followed the van through turns on the highway until they turned into the airport. Natasha sped as fast as she could to keep up. They watched in the distance, figures piling out of the van. Then Bucky, recognizable by the swarm of handlers around him and his missing arm, dragged out and into the helicopter. By the time they got close enough to even consider stopping the car and running, the helicopter was already taking off. Technically, Steve knew this was part of the plan, but he wanted to be on that helicopter with Bucky now. The sick feeling inside him grew steadily sicker until Steve felt consumed. But then there, of course, in the sky, was Sam, his wings beating, holding Clint, bow poised. Steve and Natasha stood outside of the car, staring up, holding hands in front of their eyes to block out the mid-day sun, and watched an arrow sail through the sky towards the helicopter. The blast it made with it’s attached explosives made a shuddering sound through the air and the helicopter dipped a little. Steve watched Sam swing closer and closer to the nice new door in the helicopter and drop Clint inside. Then, Sam came down for them.  
Steve watched, his shield on his arm and ready, as Natasha reached up and Sam clutched her hand and pulled her upwards. It felt like ages as Steve paced, panicking, waiting for Sam to come back for him. When he finally did, he hooked his arms under Steve’s and hauled him into the sky.  
“What could you see of the inside?” Steve cried.  
“I’m not sure exactly what I saw,” Sam replied. “But it doesn’t look good.”  
“Please tell me he looked okay,” Steve said.  
“I couldn’t tell,” Sam said.  
“This is all my fault,” Steve gasped. “We weren’t fast enough.” And then he was close and Sam folded his wings and they both dropped right into the helicopter.  
Steve heard screaming, hit the floor ready, and saw Bucky across the plane-like helicopter. He was on that machine from his file, from the pictures, he was hooked into it. There were straps and binds around his body, his face was red with blood, his eyes were closed. Natasha was undoing the binds frantically, screaming at him.  
“James!” She yelled in his face. He rolled his head, he looked like he was muttering.  
“Oh, no,” Steve breathed and everything seemed to stop. No.  
No no no no no.  
Everything in Steve screamed. His being denied what he was seeing. This wasn’t happening. He felt himself rush to Bucky’s side through the flurry of arrows and bullets. He ripped off the straps, tore them right off the machine itself, and grabbed Bucky’s shoulder on the right, hooking his hand into his metal socket on the left, and hauled him upright. Hadn’t he known this would happen? Hadn’t he tried to tell Bucky? There was hot red blood smeared over his face and down his neck. Steve had no idea where it was coming from. His eyes were glazed, he was mumbling incoherently. Steve shook him, and not gently. Bucky’s head fell back and Natasha gasped and grabbed him. She was sobbing, he noticed. He was crying too, he noticed secondly.  
“Steve!” Sam was yelling. “Steve, listen to me!” Steve looked over slowly. Sam was standing there, with guns in both hands. “We got them all. The helicopter’s on autopilot, we’ll be at-at where ever they were taking him soon.”  
“Can we continue with the mission, Captain?” Clint asked. Natasha had her face in her hands. Steve looked back at Bucky. He was staring at him blankly. Steve remembered with a suddenness that he was a Captain, he was a leader, he had to… He had to lead now. Steve nodded.   
“Can you two keep going?” He asked. He was breathless. His cheeks were wet.  
“Yes,” Sam said.  
“Bucky needs… Someone,” Steve said. He hesitated to say himself because clearly, judging by the state Steve had gotten him into, Bucky needed anyone but him. Natasha looked up, sucking in a breath, rubbing her red face, her hands and cheeks wet.  
“You stay,” she said. “You help him.”  
“Natasha, I-,” Steve started.  
“You’re the person he needs,” she said and Steve shook his head.  
“I keep hurting him,” Steve replied.  
“You’re his best friend,” she cried. I’m a pretty shoddy excuse! Steve thought to himself. “I tell you, Steve,” Natasha insisted. “There’s nothing you could do to make James hate you. He loves you so much. He needs you, he needs you!” Steve looked back at Bucky and after a while, he heard himself give in.  
Steve scooped Bucky up off the metal seat and laid him down on the floor, resting his head in Natasha’s kneeling lap. She kissed his head and wiped the sweat away from his staring and unseeing eyes as Sam and Clint helped Steve prepare wet cloths to wipe away the blood from his chin.  
“That looks cracked,” Clint noticed.  
“He was probably struggling,” Natasha whispered. Steve paced.  
“What if this isn’t normal?” Steve said. “We don’t know how he usually responds to this, what if this is abnormal, or something’s seriously wrong now?”  
“There’s no way to know,” Natasha said, looking up at him.  
“How much did he even lose this time?” Steve asked and Natasha almost wasn’t able to hold back the tears again.  
“I have no idea,” she whispered, her voice breaking. Clint kneeled next to her gently and she leaned over and threw her arms around his neck and Steve watched Clint hold her tightly.  
“He’ll be okay,” Clint was saying and Steve thought that was the biggest lie he’d ever heard. Nothing was ever going to be okay.  
Once the helicopter landed, Steve watched Sam and Clint leave. Natasha kissed Bucky’s mouth and whispered something to him and then, even she was gone. Steve sat on the ground with Bucky and put his head in his hands.  
Then, Steve stood. He wasn’t done. Something was shaking loose inside him, an uncontrollable rage. He found a piece of shrapnel from Clint’s explosion, a long piece of metal, sharp and mangled, and took it to the machine Bucky had been hooked into. Steve took a swing, and then another, and then another, and then went wild, bashing and kicking and ripping and tearing the unit to pieces. When he was finished, the machine was unrecognizable, in bits, and it sparked and fizzed at the ends of broken pieces like a dying animal. Steve wiped the wetness off his cheeks and rubbed his cut hands on his pants and then he sat by Bucky again and wept.


	68. Hollow

Bucky’s head was buzzing, screaming, twisting pain. He clung to himself like a life raft in the sea of the blackness left in his head. He was awake, but he couldn’t see through the pain, couldn’t hear or feel through it’s absolute curtain.  
James Buchanan Barnes.  
James Buchanan Barnes.  
James Buchanan Barnes.  
Steven Grant Rogers.  
Natasha-no, Natalia-no, Natasha. Natasha Romanoff.  
Natalia-Natasha?  
James Buchanan Barnes.  
Bucky repeated names to himself, trying to drown out the pain. He didn’t know how much of himself was left, he was confused, he was hurting, he was guilty.  
Then, the pain began to slip away slowly, slowly, and he could process what he was seeing, even though it didn’t make sense.  
“Steve,” Bucky muttered and Steve looked up and over at Bucky. Steve was saying things, he was cupping Bucky’s face and pain shot up from Bucky’s chin and he jerked back. Steve pulled his hands away apologetically and the pain dragged Bucky under again.  
But he knew him. He still knew him and that relief was everything to Bucky.  
Bucky woke up in his apartment. Steve was holding him, his entire face was numb. Natasha was trying to set up his bed for him. Bucky’s head pounded. He groaned and sunk into blackness.  
When he woke up for the third time, he knew things were missing. He could feel them, holes in his memory, as glaring to him as missing teeth. Or maybe he actually was just missing teeth, he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t remember, why was he missing teeth? There was a coldness in his jaw, he ran his tongue over it. Some sort of staples, he decided. Why did he need staples in his mouth? He didn’t know, he couldn’t remember, he didn’t know.  
Someone was saying his name. Bucky yelled.  
He was in his apartment. Steve and Natasha were with him. Bucky closed his eyes. He wanted to be alone.  
Get out, get out, get out!!  
“What’s he saying??” Steve cried.  
“He wants us to leave,” Natasha translated.  
“Get out!!” Bucky screamed again until he heard doors closing and he pressed his face into his pillow, rough on his staples, and screamed more. He couldn’t remember why he felt such anguish.  
Later on, (he wasn’t sure what day it was, after two days, three of lying in bed, inconsolable? It all blended together.) Bucky found his journal and looked through it. He read every entry over and over and over. Some of them were gone, he realized. Some of those precious memories were gone now. Bucky took a pen and marked each one that felt new to him and came up with seven memories out of many more completely vanished.  
One memory was about Steve. One of the times he was sick, apparently Bucky had been thirteen and trying to help, but couldn’t pay for the medicine himself and had cried outside of the Rogers’ home for ten minutes until Sarah Rogers managed to convince him that Steve wasn’t going to die.  
Another memory was small, just a picture of the front of his own house. He couldn’t remember the front of his own house now.  
A third memory had been a memory of recent times, a day he had catalogued. Natasha had apparently kissed him a lot and he had been delighted.  
A fourth memory gone was about trenches during the war, and the way Hydra’s weapons had gleamed.  
A fifth memory was another catalogued day. He was in the hospital and Steve showed him his favorite drawings from his notepad. Bucky hadn’t recorded what those favorite drawings were and now he was angry, he wanted to know. Even though it felt like a first time, he would have to ask again.  
The sixth memory was of Hydra. A mission. All he had written was that he had left a man face down in a swimming pool and the man’s children were there. Bucky shuddered.  
The seventh memory was only a picture, a distinct, frozen image of Steve, skinny and smiling and bruised, looking up at Bucky. There had been apparently cobblestone in the background, but Bucky didn’t know now.  
Bucky realized he also didn’t know why he couldn’t remember. Everything was a painful blur. There had been… What? He remembered panic in the way adrenaline seized his heart as he tried to think. He remembered screaming and some sort of plan gone wrong. But he had lost that, too. He had lost at least up to five days preceding waking up with Steve and the pain. He was confused, and lost. Hydra had had him, he knew that, but once, during the blur of days, he tried to think about it, he tried to remember, and it had hurt so bad that he puked into the toilet for thirty minutes afterwards. Remembering just wasn’t an option right now.  
Bucky was looking in the mirror. His face was dripping wet, he had been splashing his face, scrubbing until he was red. His dead brown eyes stared back at him blankly as he dripped onto the counter.  
Pieces of his identity were gone. Pieces of who he was, up in smoke, dark like a broken bulb in an empty house. Pieces that belonged to him, that built his own personal make-up, pieces he needed; lost.  
He needed to feel a rage red hot, but he could only feel numb, blank and empty like the missing pieces. He needed to feel something and all he felt was dead.  
Hydra, they did this to him. Again and again and again and again. Burnt him out like a cigarette butt, blew him out like a candle. It devastated him and he didn’t know how to stop them anymore. He was so broken, he couldn’t begin to tape his shards back together.  
And Steve… It hurt to think about Steve because Bucky felt as though he had let him down. If Bucky were to keep losing memories, if he were to become hollowed out again, scraped clean, what was to keep Steve with him? If everything Steve loved was gone, why wouldn’t he just go? And Bucky could see it, he could feel his insides being scooped out, bit by bit. More and more of the person Steve loved was being lost but Bucky couldn’t see Steve leave him. He couldn’t bare it. Even if he was so empty that nothing was left but a blank space for Hydra to pour hate into, he knew he couldn’t watch Steve walk away. But Bucky didn’t know how to make him stay. He couldn’t expect Steve to love a shell. Bucky was so scared that he was losing his purpose to Steve and the thought kept Bucky awake at night.  
And he couldn’t bare to be hollow. Not again. He couldn’t stand it. He would die first.


	69. Lies

Bucky walked over to Natasha’s apartment and knocked on the door. He didn’t realize that he hadn’t showered in days, and he was still wearing the same clothes, but his concept of time was twisted, he had no idea how long he had gone on like this. He figured it must have at least been at least few days, however, because his chin and jaw and stopped hurting so badly and he had probably healed from whatever had happened. Natasha opened the door with a huge swing and grabbed him then, wrapping him in a tight hug, like she had seen him through the peephole and couldn’t quite believe he was there. Bucky raised his arm slowly and hugged her back gently.  
“Bucky, it’s been days,” Natasha said as she pressed her face into his chest. Bucky looked down at her and stroked her hair, holding her close.  
“How long?” He asked. “How long… What day is it?” Bucky realized that he wasn’t sure about what he was asking. He wasn’t quite sure what the last thing he remembered was.   
“You’ve been in there since Wednesday,” Natasha said. “It’s Sunday now.”  
“Oh,” Bucky said.  
“Are you okay?” She asked, and then stopped herself, looking up at his face. “No, of course not, of course you’re not okay, come in here, I’ll take care of you, we’ll talk about it.” Bucky let Natasha lead him inside and sit him on the couch and bring him a blanket and a microwave TV dinner, after he realized that he couldn’t remember the last time he ate a meal, either. Natasha sat next to him as he ate and rested her head on his human right shoulder. “Do you wanna talk about it?” She asked him.  
“What happened?” He asked her. She looked up at him.  
“What do you remember last?” She asked and Bucky swallowed.  
“Um…,” he said. “We, um, I, stole a file. Steve and I read it and you… You put it back. There was something going to happen on Wednesday, that was supposed to be… I was supposed to have a week. Did they come early? Did we fail?” Natasha looked at him, watching him, and her eyes grew red. She leaned up and kissed him.  
“No, you lost that whole week,” she said. “We had a plan and our plan failed. We weren’t fast enough and you paid the price. Hydra… They must have known we were coming. They put up a bigger fight than we had anticipated.” Bucky felt hollow. He nodded.  
“Okay,” he said. “What else did I miss?”  
“Nothing,” Natasha replied quietly. Bucky shifted and looked at her.  
“What did I do that whole week?” He asked. “Surely there was something significant. Did we do anything?” Natasha looked down.  
“I bought you a jacket,” she said. “We modified more of your clothes. We talked about your arm.”  
“What did we say about it?” He asked.  
“We said it didn’t make you undesirable,” she said, snuggling closer to him. “And that it didn’t make you less. Okay?” She looked at him and he listened. Her words did stir something in him, in a memory way, but also in a familiar way that made him confused. Her words often made him feel this way, almost in a deja vu way, but until now, he hadn’t entirely connected it with memory. Now, he realized it did. He had been looking at her and feeling this way while speaking to her for months, like there were memories under the surface of all her words. It was like he was missing more pieces of her, like memories of her, but he was certain that he had not met her before his first memory of meeting her. Bucky’s head began to pound trying to comprehend it all and he looked away.  
“Okay,” he said.  
“You still believe that now?” Natasha checked and Bucky wet his lips and nodded slowly.  
“I think so,” he said, even though it was all endlessly more complicated than that and it was easier said than done. “You must have done a pretty good job convincing me.” Natasha let out a long breath.  
“Bucky, I am so sorry,” she said. “You insisted, we worried that this plan wasn’t solid enough, but you insisted.”  
“I remember,” Bucky replied quietly, although it wasn’t necessarily as much of a memory as it was a vague feeling of recognition. “I remember that.”  
Then he looked at her, dead in the eye.  
“What aren’t you telling me,” he said and he watched her throw up walls around the emotion in her eyes.  
“I’ve been… Meaning to tell you,” she said and Bucky looked away for a second, sucking in a breath, feeling as though he’d been hit. This was going to hurt, he could tell.  
“Tell me what?” He asked.  
“Do you really want to do this now, you’re not feeling well as it is and-” Natasha said fast, but Bucky cut her off, whirling around and looking into her eyes, taking one of her wrists tightly in his hand.  
“Natasha,” he cried. “Please! Don’t I deserve to know??” Natasha looked back at him, looking as though her heart was broken. She blinked away tears.   
“You deserve to know,” she whispered back. “But please, understand, I was scared, I was-”  
“Natalia,” Bucky said and Natasha’s head snapped up and she stared at him, her eyes wide, until Bucky realized what he said and blinked in surprise. “I-I,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say that, I was confused earlier, I kept saying your name wrong.”  
“No,” Natasha said. “No, you’re not wrong.”  
“So you’re going to tell me,” Bucky said. “Finally.” Natasha wiped tears away from her eyes and took Bucky’s hand in hers, running her fingers over his knuckles and kissing the back of his hand. After a long silence, she spoke.  
“When you were Hydra’s prisoner,” Natasha began. “There was a thing called the Red Room, a project of sorts. And there was a girl there that you were assigned to train. She needed to know how to kill, and how to go unseen. So you trained her, and you were excellent, you were brilliant, and after a while, she became rather enamoured with you because you were so handsome and mysterious and sad.” Natasha tried to smile at him here, but couldn’t manage, and instead, kept speaking. “She discovered your secrets and shared them with you and for a few weeks, you and her were happy and you were friends and lovers and everything was great, until she discovered what they were doing to you for asking questions. And then,” Natasha wiped her eyes again and Bucky listened, feeling hollowed out again, feeling shelled. “And then they found out that you loved her and that she was changing the way they’d hardwired you into their assassin and they hurt you very much. And then they wiped you completely and froze you in cryostasis and that was all my fault. But I knew you were alive, because one day, you gave me this.” And Natasha lifted her shirt and showed Bucky a large white scar on her hip and Bucky took in a deep breath, realizing that this was everything was coming down now and nothing would be the same. Natasha cocked her head, smiling sadly through the tears. “‘Tis the life of a spy,” she said, then continued. “And then I saw you again, heard of you, and I was… I was very scared and hopeful and I didn’t know what to do, but of course, you didn’t remember me and I didn’t know how to say it and I almost thought it would be better for you if you didn’t remember, but I was so wrong, James, you deserve to know everything and I kept it from you and I am just as bad as them,” she finished. She took a breath and rubbed tears off her cheeks, but she was sobbing now, shoulder-shaking sobs, and she finally dropped her head in her hands and stopped trying to pretend she was okay.  
Bucky’s first urge here was to hold Natasha until she stopped crying, but nothing was the same now, and that wasn’t right anymore, so he pulled away from her and stood slowly. Then, he turned and left Natasha’s apartment and went back into his own and took out his journal and wrote what she’d told him and felt distinctly hollow and gutted about the whole experience and wondered if he would ever be able to love Natasha the same again.  
Bucky wanted to cry, he could feel it, the emotion, brimming inside of him, but in a dull way, like he was watching it happen to someone else. He felt numb and very distinctly alone and it was awful.


	70. Betrayal

Bucky went to Steve’s apartment sometime later, how much later he couldn’t be sure, but Steve didn’t answer the door, so Bucky sat down on the floor beside it and rested his head against the wall until he saw Steve round the corner in the hall and stop.  
Hi Steve, Bucky wanted to say, but he couldn’t gather the courage, so he only let out a breath and turned his head back and stared up at the ceiling. He let Steve grab him and haul him to his feet, one hand hooking Bucky’s metal socket, but he didn’t even care anymore. Steve embraced him like another seventy years had gone by and Bucky could only offer him a weak hug back.  
“Are you okay?” Steve was saying and Bucky was shaking his head. Steve unlocked his apartment and ushered Bucky inside, sitting him down like Natasha had and seating himself across from him. Bucky leaned over and ran his hand through his hair.  
“I lost an entire week,” Bucky admitted to Steve. His voice was breaking. “Last week, it’s almost all gone. And then other things as well. From my journal. I don’t recognize them anymore.” Steve took a deep breath.  
“I am so sorry, Bucky,” Steve said. “This was my fault. I had such a bad feeling about all of it, I was apprehensive, I thought something would go wrong. I couldn’t save you.” Steve looked up at Bucky and it occurred to Bucky that he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “You… You would have come through for me. I know I can’t make this up to you.” Bucky looked down and closed his eyes. The weight of the way Steve blamed himself was heavy on both of them. Bucky didn’t know what to say. He knew what he wanted to say, that it wasn’t Steve’s fault, Steve had been there for him, Steve had always been there for him and he had no reason to feel bad or guilty because Bucky didn’t blame him and he shouldn’t blame himself. This was the fault of Hydra. Bucky couldn’t go so far as to say it wasn’t the fault of himself, because on the inside, deep inside, he still had difficulty believing that, but if he knew anything at all, if he remembered anything, it was that Steve wasn’t to blame. Steve was only pure good and he shouldn’t have to feel guilt over Bucky. But Bucky also knew that saying these things, as he had been saying these things, as they had been saying them to each other for months, wouldn’t help at all. Because they never helped. Bucky’s stuttered, broken words couldn’t help Steve, couldn’t make him believe them to be true. Because that’s all they were in the end, to the both of them. Words, not beliefs.  
But there was more Bucky did want to say, more he had to talk about.  
“Natasha talked to me,” Bucky said.  
“What did she say?” Steve asked and Bucky swallowed.  
“She told me I knew her, once. And she kept it from me,” Bucky said and Steve was silent. “I knew her,” Bucky said and suddenly, he was wiping tears away from his eyes. “I knew her. I trained her. And I forgot her. But then…” And this was the worst part. “But she let me believe we had just met. She let me go on not knowing, not telling me.” Bucky wasn’t quite done, but then Steve spoke up and Bucky felt everything he was about to say, and he had been doing good, too, die in his throat.  
“I know,” Steve said. “I know, she told me a while ago.” Bucky stood abruptly. He jumped to his feet. He didn’t let it sink in, he didn’t try to take it slowly, he just stood, shocked, alarmed. Hurt, too, but suddenly there were so many emotions in him, he couldn’t quite name them all. He thought maybe it didn’t have to sink in because inside, he’d already suspected it and that was pain, too.  
There was a second of silence while Bucky stared at Steve and all the trust he had built in him shattered.  
“What do you mean you know?” Bucky said, even though he knew exactly what Steve had meant. “You know, too? The both of you knew?!”  
“Bucky,” Steve said, looking up at him. Bucky felt everything crumble inside him. He had been lied to.  
“How could you do this to me,” Bucky gasped, escalating, growing until his voice was a roar. How could you break my trust, how could you keep secrets from me. “After everything, after everything, Steve!” I thought we were friends, I thought you would be there for me, I thought you would understand.  
Why why why  
“Bucky, you have to speak English!” Steve replied frantically. “I can’t understand you!” Bucky stared at Steve, feeling everything fall. Bucky didn’t want to translate himself. He didn’t care, he was too hurt. He was too betrayed.  
Bucky left quickly.  
He deserved to know. He wanted to know. It was his head, they were his memories, his experiences and if anything at all, wasn’t he at least entitled to that? Bucky had thought Natasha understood. He thought Steve wouldn’t keep things from him. He thought there were at least two people in this hell his life had become that he could trust fully and completely.  
Bucky no longer felt the numbness he had felt as he left Natasha, crying in her apartment. Steve’s reveal had destroyed that. He was assaulted with emotion, like a tidal wave and he couldn’t get a breath. He felt like he was drowning. He wanted to run away from it all.  
It was a deadly cocktail of betrayal and mistrust and a very, very broken heart that Bucky Barnes stewed over now. He had thought he was done being lied to, having his past erased and stolen from him. He had thought he had found people who loved him enough to understand that, to understand that he wanted all of it, he needed all of it because it was a part of him and he couldn’t stand any more dark rooms in his head. They were his rooms, his memories, his dam!! He deserved it all!   
Bucky had always known Natasha was secretive. There were mysteries in her that he had always known he wouldn’t understand and he had been relatively okay with that. He had never dreamed this, however. Even in his nightmares, he couldn’t have imagined this.   
And it had hurt when Hydra had done this to him, when they lied to him and manipulated him and took away his identity because they carved something out of him then. But it hurt like hell to look back and realize that Natasha was doing it too, all along. And Steve, also. It was a knife he hadn’t even known existed in his back. It was a stab where he thought there wasn’t even a place to have a wound. But then, he guessed, that was the nature of betrayal. It hurt more than anything else in the world and it never came from your enemies.


	71. ___

The Winter Soldier-no, no. That wasn’t his name. Think, think, it’s James. My name, my name is James. Call yourself James.  
James had begun to look forward to his time training Natalia Romanova. She was beautiful and fiercely intelligent and she seemed to care about drawing emotion out of him, yet not in a taunting way, no. She was concerned. The Win--JAMES couldn’t remember the last time someone had been concerned for his well-being in such a way. His handlers were impersonal and more than often rough and he didn’t fight them, but he realized that they were his only other human contact. He thought long and hard about this one day, staring at a wall in his holding cell, and it most certainly was a cell, bars and all, but he didn’t think he minded. He’d long grown used to being caged. James-yes, yeah, that sounds good, maybe it is sort of right-came to the conclusion that he really liked Natalia and he almost hoped she liked him too, although he knew he wasn’t there to be liked and regardless, there wasn’t much to like anyway. He had next to no personality to speak of, not next to Natalia and her charming wit, and his job wasn’t to make friends. He was the Winter Soldier. Well, his name was James. But he was still the Winter Soldier, as a sort of title, he thought. Like a second name, of this person he had become. Because James was not who he was, not exactly, not anymore. At least, he didn’t think so. He would have to put more thought into it. But regardless, human contact was not James’s/the Winter Soldier’s number one priority, although he was beginning to question whether or not he liked it that way.  
James also put a lot of thought into the folder Natalia had brought him. He had some sort of origin now, and a name, and a birth date, and a story. It brought him closer to himself, like he had to meet himself again, shake hands, exchange pleasantries. He knew he didn’t know all the details, but this was so much closer. He had come from somewhere. He had been taken. He wondered if he left behind anyone who loved him. He wondered if they ever tried to find him again. Would those people want him now that he was this? James wasn’t sure. However, he also wasn’t sure who he had been to begin with, so he didn’t have much to compare. But he knew one thing; he had not always been the Winter Soldier.  
In the middle of his thoughts, the cell doors rattled and the Winte-James-James looked up. His handlers were there, men in black, several holding guns. James looked back down. He avoided eye contact if he could help it. He didn’t want to provoke them, because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t, or rather, couldn’t, fight back when they retaliated.  
“Stand,” one of the men said and James did. “Walk,” the man said and James did. They took him down the hallways in a familiar direction, handlers flanking him and encircling him around, hands on their guns, and James almost smiled. They were going to that training room, he was going to see Natalia.  
James waited there for Natalia until she arrived, like usual, and he smiled at her. He wasn’t very used to smiling. His smile was slow, sort of stilted, and it felt a little unnatural, but when she smiled back, he felt an ease with smiling sink in around him. This was right.   
“Hello again, James,” Natalia said and hearing his name come from someone other than himself felt great. It was like confirmation, yes, this is who you are. You can smile now, you can have a name now. “How are you?” James wasn’t sure how to answer this. He realized he was staring at her and he looked down. He was good, he was great now that she was here. But on the whole, no, he thought, like this was all coming to him now. No, on a regular basis, overall, he wasn’t too great and he thought it might have something to do with the Winter Soldier, but he couldn’t be sure because he remembered no other life.  
“I’m, uh,” James said, trying out the words now. They were new to him. “I’m alright.” His bruises had healed from before, from when he had asked questions, and that was good. His right collarbone was healed, too, from the same incident. And everything else that had hurt was fixed. And he was just so glad that she was here. “How are you?”  
“Good now,” she said with a teasing smile and James didn’t quite understand. Did she mean the same thing he meant? Was she glad to see him?  
“I don’t… understand,” James said slowly, his awkward stuntedness making him cringe, but Natalia laughed and he felt a little better.  
“It’s called flirting,” she said, her eyebrows raised expectantly. “Heard of it?”  
“Oh, how could I have forgotten,” James replied sarcastically, but he was smiling. He was trying to make a joke, he thought it was almost clever in a self-deprecating way, but he hung on her every movement as a response. Natalia smirked.  
“Cute,” she said.  
“It was a joke,” James added, just in case.  
“I know,” Natalia replied and then chuckled, as though more at James himself than his words. “But you should use English, I need the practice.”  
“It’s easier to talk to you in Russian,” James replied in English, as per her request. And I want to talk to you. She smiled at him and took her time thinking before responding.  
“With practice, it will be easy in both,” she said, her accent thick and he repeated her sentence back to her with the right inflection and she tried again, then continued. “Besides, languages aren’t that bad. English will come.”  
“Didn’t you say you spoke Latin?” James asked and Natalia nodded proudly, a smirk on her mouth and James scoffed playfully at her. “Who speaks Latin?”  
“I do,” she replied in English and James smiled, watching her. He was so appreciative of the time spent with Natalia, where he got to be human again for a while before he returned to his handlers. When he was with Natalia, he didn’t feel so hollow. It wasn’t that she filled him up, which he was sure he wouldn’t have liked because Hydra and the Soviets did the same thing. It was more that she removed some barrier and let him fill himself up. The truth of the matter was, he felt more like James when he was with Natalia.


	72. Guilt

Guilt is not like a weight. Maybe to some, but not to Steve. Guilt is like a poison. It sits like a weight, that may be true, but it destroys like an acid. It burns away everything, eats at your happiness all the time. The endless, destroying guilt that was never gone. Even when Bucky tried to tell Steve he wanted him or he forgave him or he didn’t blame him, Steve still wanted to apologize for everything. And now, Bucky couldn’t even tell Steve those things because they just weren’t true anymore. Steve had ruined that and now for everything, he wanted to apologize to Bucky. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I let you get hurt like you would have never let me. I’m sorry I’m even here at all, to cause you so much more discomfort. I’m sorry.  
I’m sorry.  
I’m sorry.  
And they weren’t just words either, Steve felt the sorriness down to his feet for things he could never change and things that logic told him weren’t his fault. But he had always been like that, he supposed, taking things on, assuming responsibility. It wasn’t heroic. He just hated himself that much.  
He deserved this, though, this new guilt, as Bucky yelled in Russian words Steve didn’t know and stormed out, rightfully enraged. Somehow, Steve hadn’t realized how angry Bucky would be, how hurt, but now it was so obvious. Steve had thought he might be helping, so that Bucky and Natasha could be happy, but of course he was wrong, of course!! Bucky had every right to be angry! Steve had lied to him, if at least by omission, and he had told Natasha not to say anything and it was he who had done this new horrible thing to Bucky. Could Bucky ever forgive him, ever trust him? Steve knew he didn’t deserve it.  
And it was the guilt, in the end, that had begun to destroy Steve Rogers. He didn’t feel like sunshine anymore, he could see it in the mirror, draining out of his eyes. Sometimes, he was so far in the depths of his pain and the way he took on everyone else’s pain as well, that he couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever seen sparkle and life there at all.   
It’s difficult, sometimes, to see the life in your own eyes until you have to watch it fizzle away. Then it becomes so obvious that you had really been something in that distant Before.  
And then it would grow worse, because he would catch himself in the act of thinking these things and then chastise himself for self-pity. It was almost ridiculous, he knew, when he thought about it. He would take everyone’s pain, including his own, and then hate himself for feeling it all. He just didn’t know how to stop.  
A day or so after the falling out with Bucky, Steve got a call from Tony.  
“Hey, I’m coming over, is Bucky there?” Tony said after Steve said hello.  
“No,” Steve said. “Why?”  
“Call him over,” Tony said. “I’m gonna make him a new arm.”  
“I thought you said you were busy,” Steve replied and he could just hear the cocky grin in Tony’s voice. Starks, Steve sighed.  
“Not anymore!” Tony exclaimed.  
Then came the hard part for Steve. He called Bucky and just prayed he’d pick up. He did, on the second or third ring. There was a hesitation and Steve waited.  
“What,” Bucky said after a minute, his voice dark. Steve took a deep breath.  
“Tony called. He wants to meet us at my place and start thinking about a new prosthetic for you,” he said. Bucky let out a breath into the phone.  
“What time,” he asked.  
“Now, I guess,” Steve said.  
“Okay,” Bucky said. There was another pause. This, Steve knew, would have been a logical time for Bucky to hang up or leave, but he was hanging on. Steve clung to this.  
“Have you seen Natasha?” Steve asked finally. He had seen Natasha. She wasn’t okay just like he wasn’t okay just like Bucky wasn’t okay. Like none of them were even remotely okay anymore.  
“No,” Bucky replied. There was some shuffling behind the phone and Steve wondered what Bucky was doing.  
“I’m so sorry,” Steve said quietly.  
“Yeah,” Bucky said bitterly. “You should be.” Steve didn’t know what else to say. Asking for forgiveness was beyond ridiculous.  
“Are you okay?” Steve decided to say. Bucky took a long time to respond.  
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I… I’m trying to… I just can’t believe… I trusted-” Bucky stopped and Steve waited patiently for him to pull his thoughts together, bracing himself for the worst. “You lied to me,” he finally said, and Steve understood everything he was trying to say.  
“I know,” Steve said.  
“Look, let’s talk about this later,” Bucky said. “I don’t want to… Let’s just… Later, okay?”  
“Okay,” Steve replied.  
“I’ll be over soon, I guess,” Bucky said.  
“Okay,” Steve said again and then, finally, Bucky hung up.  
He arrived at Steve’s apartment in a jacket with the sleeve taken off and a pair of sweatpants. He had bathed, clearly, and shaved, which Steve thought was a good sign. He looked better, at least, than the last time Steve had found him by his apartment. He didn’t look much happier, however. Bucky brushed past Steve once the door was open and stood in the hallway. Steve didn’t bother saying hello.  
“Tony’s not here yet?” Bucky asked.  
“No,” Steve said. Bucky nodded.  
“Guess we’ll just wait then,” he said.  
“Do you want to sit down?” Steve asked.  
“No,” Bucky said and leaned his right shoulder against the wall. There was a long silence and they stood that way for at least ten minutes. Steve had so much he wanted to say and he almost said it, but the way Bucky had asked him to talk about it later stopped him again and again. Bucky didn’t seem to have the same problem. He stared at the wall in front of him blankly, blinking slowly. He got that way sometimes, when no one was actively engaging him, and Steve shuddered to imagine what he could be thinking about or reliving.  
Finally, after such a long silence that Steve’s ears were ringing, there came another knock on the door. Steve opened the door to find a familiar-looking red and gold Ironman suit and stared at him, confused. Tony swung out his arms and the metal over his face rose to reveal his self-satisfied grin.  
“Tada!” Tony said.  
“You rebuilt it?” Steve asked.  
“Rebuilt what?” Bucky asked behind him.  
“Well,” Tony said, dropping his arms and the look on his face was difficult to read. “I thought maybe it shouldn’t be about me. Maybe people need Ironman.” Steve was a little taken aback by this. His relationship with Tony was complicated, but Steve was a little impressed by this.  
“That’s really nice, Tony,” Steve said. That was honorable. Steve felt a surge of pride in him.  
“What can I say, I’m a nice guy,” Tony replied. Steve just laughed, and then Bucky came up behind him and gasped.  
“What is that?!” He cried.  
“Bucky, hi!” Tony said. “This is my new suit, what do you think?” Bucky was speechless. Steve looked over his shoulder at him and his eyes were wide. “Well are you going to invite me in or am I just going to stand in the hallway, cause-”  
“No, no, come in,” Steve said, and he and Bucky awkwardly shifted away from the door, pulling it open wider, and Tony with his shiny new metal suit joined them inside. Bucky was staring.  
“You…,” he said. “What, you made that?”   
“Yeah,” Tony said, like it was obvious. “I’m Ironman.”  
“Oh,” Bucky said, as though he was trying to accept this. But Steve could see cogs turning in his head as he stared. Steve realized he was probably thinking about his arm. If this was the kind of stuff Tony made, what would a bionic prosthetic from him look like?   
“I didn’t really want to wear this,” Tony said and there was clicking and shifting and suddenly, he was stepping out of his suit, the entire thing opening up for him to simply stroll out of. “But it’s new and I used it to fly here and I also sort of wanted to show it off, you know? It can just stand here, right?” Tony didn’t wait for Steve to say yes, he simply turned around and ordered Jarvis to stand there.   
“Of course, sir,” Jarvis said and Steve saw Bucky grin, delighted and surprised. Steve couldn’t help but smile a little, too, watching him. Bucky glanced over at Steve as though he had forgotten that he was angry for a second, and nodded to the suit.  
“That’s amazing,” he said both to Steve and Tony. Steve smiled back.  
“It’s not like anything we grew up with, that’s for sure,” he replied.  
Tony instructed Bucky to take off his jacket and shirt and began to take a cast of his right arm using tiny hand projectors and holograms. Bucky stood very still, holding his arm aloft and watching, enthralled, as Tony scanned his arm and shoulder with blue light from several angles. He was smiling, utterly fascinated, like Steve had thought he would be. Steve was glad to see him smile. Earlier, as he had watched him stare blankly, Steve had been afraid that Bucky wouldn’t be able to be happy, at least not today. But he had been gladly proven wrong.


	73. Agency

“Holy cow,” Bucky said and laughed at himself for saying it as he watched Tony make a 3-D hologram model of his right arm and mirror it. He was distracted for now from the painful betrayal that had been eating at his heart and the discomfort at seeing Steve again, at standing in his apartment. Tony’s tech was fascinating, it was fun to see. He was enthralled in watching Tony work and for the first time in such a long time, he was lost enough inside his wonder to be happy, for at least a minute.  
“Practically done already,” Tony said and Bucky smiled a little.  
“So do you do this a lot?” Bucky asked. “Make prosthetics?” Tony shrugged as he worked, examining now Bucky’s left socket. Tony nodded over to his suit.  
“That’s a prosthetic,” Tony said casually and Bucky looked over at the suit, then back at Tony. He resisted the urge to then look down at the blank space where his left arm would be. Prosthesis? His armor? That was a joke, surely. “Well, I mean, it’s the best way I can accurately describe it.”  
“Uhuh,” Bucky said. Tony wasn’t missing an arm. In fact, Tony wasn’t missing anything. His shiny, pretty battle armor didn’t replace a lost limb so it wasn’t what Bucky would call a prosthetic. Bucky frowned. He didn’t want to act sore over something so petty, but Tony’s flippant use of the word seemed to strike him and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Luckily, however, Tony changed the subject pretty quickly.  
“So tell me about your other arm,” Tony said. “What did it do?”  
“Well,” Bucky said as Tony looked into his socket. “It was an arm.” He shrugged. “That’s it. I mean, I guess it wasn’t your ordinary arm or your ordinary replacement, but it felt like it, most of the time, when I wasn’t thinking about it.”  
“Waterproof?” Tony asked and Bucky scoffed.  
“Of course,” he said.  
“And it was light-weight,” Tony continued.  
“Well, you know that, yeah, it was,” Bucky said. “Like I said, it was my arm. It was a part of me.” Then why did you keep taking it off, Bucky questioned himself in his head and frowned. Now that he had gone a month or so without it, he couldn’t quite remember why he’d ever wanted it off in the first place.  
“You weren’t singing the same song when it broke that first time,” Tony replied and Bucky stared at the ground thoughtfully.  
“I’m allowed to change my mind,” he retorted finally.  
“So you’re still going to go get it back?” Tony asked and Bucky nodded slowly.  
“Yeah,” he said. It had begun to dawn on Bucky in slow moments rising to his mind that Hydra was taking possession of him again. They were owning him again, even if they had to do it in pieces and chunks. That was his arm they were claiming, it belonged to him, it was a part of him. There, standing in front of Tony and thinking deeply, was the first time that Bucky had admitted that to himself in so many words. And suddenly, he had a fierce desire to get that same arm back, no matter what it took.  
Then, Tony was finished and packing up his materials and he was saying something to Steve, but Bucky was so deep in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed.  
“I’ll have a prototype in at least by next week,” Tony said to Bucky, stepping again into his suit and Bucky nodded slowly.  
“Something temporary,” he said.  
“Yeah, ‘course,” Tony replied and the metal mask snapped closed over his face. “See you then.” The metal over Tony’s hand pulled back and he opened Steve’s door and stepped out. “Bye Steve,” he said and Steve waved. Bucky nodded to him and then he was gone.   
Bucky had been able to ignore Steve pretty well up until then, but now they were left alone.   
“I thought you hated that arm,” Steve said quietly and Bucky shook his head. That had never been true, not exactly. He’d felt a level of disgust about his scars and the socket. He’d felt distinctly inhuman about the metal sometimes. Every so often, he would see in flashes, his left hand pulling gun triggers or strangling necks or breaking bones and he felt a fresh surge of repulsion, but he was coming to realize that it wasn’t repulsion about his arm. It never had been, ever. It was a repulsion and disgust about himself. His arm was just an arm, after all. It was just a tool. Like he was just a tool, like he had agency now, choice now. He could choose to do good things. He didn’t have to see that hand in the service of evil anymore, just like he didn’t have to see himself.  
So maybe it was a level of forgiving himself, when he began to accept that he wanted his arm back. It was forgiveness, and it was also a very powerful strike at Hydra. Controlling James Buchanan Barnes was not an option for them anymore and he would have his agency back. All of it. Every single detachable vibranium piece.


	74. Report

Natasha stood in front of Fury, making the report on both her and Steve’s behalf.  
“Bucky was badly injured,” she said. “They were prepared for us coming, they were faster than us and they got some of his memories before I could turn the off machine.” She hated how she felt underneath the words. Here was not the place to become emotional, as she had been all week. It was time to be professional again. It was time to be removed again. And Natasha liked that, the removedness. It was difficult to smother her emotions at first, as it always was, but once she got going, her face was stony and she no longer felt the itch of tears in her eyes. She was good at hiding herself, her barest, rawest insides. She was good at going unseen.   
It was, after all, her job.  
“How is he?” Fury asked. Natasha thought about how to answer that.  
“I’m not sure,” she said. Fury looked at her suspiciously.  
“Shouldn’t you know?” He asked.  
Shouldn’t I? Natasha thought. As his friend? As his lover? Shouldn’t I know?  
Bucky’s words rang again in her head, the mantra she’d been repeating. She’d been hearing it in her very dreams. Don’t I deserve to know? Yes, James, you deserve to know everything. And now I deserve to know nothing.  
I’m the last person entitled to know anything about him anymore, Director, Natasha considered saying.  
“He and I…,” Natasha said quietly as she thought. We had a fight. We had a falling out. “He’s not talking to me, sir. And I don’t want to intrude on him.” Fury seemed to be able to tell that it was personal and he was respectful enough to ask no more. Natasha was so grateful, because she could feel her stoniness slipping as she thought about it. The mantras. The words she heard in her ears over and over and over. Don’t I deserve to know? She tormented herself like she hadn’t tormented herself in years. Thinking the words was beginning to drag her back to that place of torment, but she couldn’t be there now. She strengthened the wall over her face and straightened her back. Go unseen, Tasha. Go unseen.  
“And how did the rest of the mission go?” Fury was asking. “After you left Barnes and Rogers.”  
“Mostly uneventful,” Natasha reported. They were moving on. This was good. “Clint and Sam and I snuck into the base. It was small, some sort of in-between place, we think. There wasn’t much there. But we did find this.” Natasha pulled a flashdrive out of her pockets. Good old flashdrives. Nothing like those archaic folders, bulky and useless and horrible. Yellowing and brittle and so painfully, scarringly truthful. Folders, Natasha thought, trying to joke with herself, trying to lighten her own mood before she sunk any further because as much as she tried not to name it, or to name him, she knew exactly what she was thinking about. That’s so 1945. She allowed herself a small smile, but then all she could see was James’s face as she told him her lies. He hadn’t been Bucky in that moment. She had been looking at the Winter Soldier. She saw the man who trained her and then shot her through. And she loved him very, very deeply and very, very dearly but there was emptiness in him and scar tissue throughout him and she was only leaving more. It scared her, the look in his eyes and the pain she herself had left there.  
Fury picked up the flashdrive and turned it in his hands.  
“What’s this?” He asked.  
“Intel,” she replied. “I stole it from their hard drives. There’s a location in there, several, actually. I think that’s where we can find the heart of Hydra.”  
“So the mission was successful?” Fury asked and Natasha took a deep breath.  
“That information didn’t come without a price,” she told him. “Bucky gave up pieces of his identity for that. The mission was successful, but it wasn’t cheap.” Fury nodded thoughtfully.  
“I’m beginning to wonder if putting the Winter Soldier onto this mission was a good idea after all,” he said and Natasha stared, suddenly concerned. Bucky wouldn’t like to hear that.  
“What do you mean?” She asked him.  
“Bucky Barnes is just too close to this,” Fury said. “He doesn’t understand that this is bigger than him. He’s in it for vengeance-”  
“He’s not!” Natasha interrupted Fury, stunning herself as much as him.  
“Oh, he’s not, is he?” Fury retorted. “Then why?” Natasha sighed.  
“He just wants to be safe, sir,” she said. “And he needs to get retaliation. Not revenge, just… A sort of closure.” Fury looked at her, clearly impressed, but not convinced.  
“Closure or revenge aside,” he said. “They’re both too close and too personal. And he won’t be much help to anyone if he keeps getting his brain fried. I think I’d like to ask Barnes to step aside for a few months.”   
“Please, Director, don’t do this,” Natasha said.  
“You know, I’m not technically the Director anymore,” Fury replied.  
“He needs to do this, he wants to do this, please give him another chance,” Natasha begged for James. She didn’t know why she was doing it. If he was off this mission, he would be safer. She could protect him better. He would be forced to stay behind and hide where no one could find him, but then Natasha realized. She owed James. She had already made decisions for him. She had decided what he could and couldn’t know about her and their past and that had been so wrong. Now, it was time for James to make his own decisions, not her, not Steve, not Hydra-but James Buchanan Barnes. She wished she could ask him what he wanted because he deserved it and he needed it, but he wasn’t there and Natasha had to do the best she could. The last time they’d spoken about it, Bucky had been adamant on this mission. It was what he wanted and she would fight for him in his stead. She owed him that much. And it wouldn’t make up for what she’d done and how she’d lied, but if it was what he wanted, it was what he would get. “You can’t take him off this mission, Director.”  
“Give me one good reason, Romanoff,” Fury said. Natasha thought and then answered him.  
“Because he’s already given up everything for it,” she said.


	75. ___

Weeks after the incident in the alley, Bucky had become quite close with Steve. Steve was small and unbelievably sickly and they couldn’t play all the games Bucky liked to play because Steve was too weak, but Bucky didn’t care. He was content to sit with Steve and talk or go and see a movie. Steve had a sort of integrity about him that Bucky felt drawn to. He was certain about what was right and Bucky liked that. He wasn’t certain like Steve was. He’d never put much thought into it; he was nine years old, he liked to play rough and laugh. Honor and dignity and dying for a cause had never once crossed his mind, but they crossed Steve’s and Bucky was fascinated.  
Bucky liked Steve’s drawings, even though his own art left something to be desired and he could tell that Steve didn’t know how to say that to him. They drew together and played and talked about baseball, of which Steve was becoming a bigger and bigger fan since Bucky introduced him to the finer aspects. And they liked each other. They simply had fun together.  
Steve had not been attacked since becoming friends with Bucky and Bucky was glad. Let his reputation speak for them both. Bucky wasn’t going to let some older kids beat up on someone littler than them. Bucky and Steve walked home together undisturbed on most days, but not today. It was another big group, probably the same kids and then some, and Petey MacGregor with a baby tooth knocked right out of his skull and a real taste for vengeance.  
Alright, Bucky thought and took a small step in front of Steve. Bring it.  
“Hey Bucky!” Pete yelled once Bucky and Steve stopped in the road, halted by the line of buzzing spectators and spiteful bullies. “Howsabout I take one ‘a your friend’s teeth in place of mine?”  
“Get lost, Pete,” Bucky said. “I’d hit you again, but you couldn’t stand to get any uglier.” The kids behind Pete burst into laughter and Bucky grinned, pleased with himself. He glanced at Steve. Steve wasn’t laughing. Bucky’s grin fell just in the slightest.  
“I could take you,” Steve said loudly and Bucky’s smile vanished completely and the kids were roaring with laughter now. Bucky felt a sinking feeling. Steve was going to get his butt kicked.  
Pete’s jeers were turned to Steve now and Bucky really didn’t like that.  
“You could take me on without your boyfriend?” Pete laughed and Steve frowned deeply. Bucky knew that frown already. That was the way his mouth set when he was determined.  
“I don’t need Bucky,” Steve said and Bucky felt rather stunned. He looked down at Steve, the cockiness falling even now from his shoulders, broken-hearted. He felt like he had been slapped. Steve needed him, surely Steve needed him. If he didn’t, who did need Bucky?  
“Then come fight me, you scrawny sissy,” Pete said. His ‘s’s slurred now with his tooth gone.  
“Steve,” Bucky started to say, but as he turned, Steve’s books were already hitting the ground and Steve was throwing a punch at Pete’s head. “Geez, STEVE!”  
Pete dodged easily and then threw back a retaliation punch that hit Steve square in the nose. Bucky could practically see the stars above his head. He looked dizzy.  
“Hey,” Bucky said, all serious stuff now, hunching his shoulders to look more intimidating, and trying to step between Steve and Pete. “Watch it.”  
“No!” Bucky heard from behind him and Steve was pushing him away. I don’t need Bucky, he was saying. “I can do this, let me do this!”  
“I don’t wanna have to pick up the pieces and carry you home in a wheelbarrow after this,” Bucky hissed and Steve ground his teeth loudly. Then, another punch hit Steve in the jaw from behind Bucky.  
“Move!” Steve yelled and stepped around Bucky, trying to hit Pete again. Bucky turned and watched, feeling more and more helpless now that Steve had cut him out and was taking on Pete alone.   
“Get him on the left!” Bucky said loudly. Steve turned his head.  
“What?” he said and was hit again. Bucky flinched.   
“I mean hit him on the left-no, your left!!” He tried again. But then, Pete, angrier now that Bucky was trying to point out his weak spots, became a hail of fists. He was fast. Bucky had never seen a kid hit so fast. He couldn’t be grabbed or stopped. Bucky felt bad as he watched, but he made a mental note to try to be faster next time. Maybe speed was key.  
But as Bucky was thinking this, he soon forgot because it was Steve who was being hit at lightening speed and Bucky felt every punch like he had been socked himself. Steve was failing miserably. He couldn’t get in a hit. Pete was destroying him. Steve was beginning to look panicked and Bucky fought the urge to jump in because Steve would never forgive him.   
Then, Bucky noticed something weird about Steve. He was breathing different, his chest was going in and out, he was gasping. Bucky could hear his wheezes from where he stood, steps away. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.  
“Hey!!” Bucky screamed and threw himself at Pete, knocking the kid aside. “Stop! You’re hurting him! You’re really, really hurting him!” Then, Bucky turned back to Steve and grabbed him, held his shoulders. Steve’s face was going pale. His breathing sounded bad, like he was choking on something.  
“What’s wrong?” Bucky cried in Steve’s face. Steve couldn’t answer. He couldn’t catch his breath. Bucky watched him fumble in his pockets and come up empty, looking even more afraid than before. The crowd behind them mumbled, scared, and began to dissipate, but neither Bucky or Steve noticed.  
“In-gasp-haler,” Steve said. “I-gasp-forgot it I-gaaaasp-my-”  
“I don’t know what that is!” Bucky cried. Steve was white. His eyes weren’t focusing anymore, he was shaking. He couldn’t breathe! Bucky didn’t know what to do. He was panicking too. He felt tears spring to his eyes. “Is it at your house? Can I go get it for you?” Steve nodded weakly and Bucky sat him down on the cobblestone and he ran. Bucky had never gotten back to Steve’s house in under ten minutes before, but that day, he did it in three. His feet pounded the cobblestone, his arms pumped. He shoved people out of the way and didn’t even stop to apologize because this was an emergency, Steve could be dying!! He reached the house and threw himself at the door, slapping his hands against the wood.  
“Mrs. Rogers!!” Bucky screamed. “Mrs. Rogers!” Steve’s frazzled mother appeared at the door, looking confused.  
“Bucky,” she said and Bucky cut her off. He was crying now, there was no time! What if Steve had already lost consciousness? What if an inhaler wasn’t something he could carry? What was wrong with Steve?!  
“Steve needs his inhaler!” Bucky cried. “Right now!!” Mrs. Rogers look surprised, and then turned back into the house.  
“I told him not to forget it,” she said.  
“Do you have it?” Bucky asked. Mrs. Rogers came back quickly with some little plastic pipe and Bucky took it from her and ran again, this time trying to be faster, but his tears were blurring his vision now and he bumped into people and buildings and smacked his forehead hard into a pole and saw stars. But he got to Steve, sitting in the street where he had left him, leaning over the cobblestone and closing his eyes. Bucky dropped to his knees and thrust the pipe into Steve’s hands.  
“Here!” he cried. “Be okay!!” Steve took the inhaler but seemed to panic more when his shaking hands couldn’t get the lid off, so Bucky grabbed it from him and tore the cap off himself. Steve took it back and put the end into his mouth, trying to take a deep breath. Bucky watched through tears as Steve calmed down and the inhaler had worked and Steve began to breathe normally again, but Bucky still felt panic, he still felt afraid and he didn’t understand, so he folded up his legs next to Steve on the ground and put his head in his arms and cried.  
“Thanks,” Steve said and he still sounded somewhat wheezy, breathy. Bucky felt him put a bony, shaky hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, I’m okay now.” Bucky lifted his head and tried to stop crying. This was embarrassing, he was supposed to be tough!  
“What happened?!” Bucky cried. “What was that?”  
“It’s called asthma,” Steve said. “It makes me stop breathing sometimes.” Bucky felt horrified by this and he must have looked horrified too because Steve grinned at him reassuringly now. “I’m okay now,” Steve said again. “I’m going to be fine.”  
“Is that normal?” Bucky asked and Steve nodded. Bucky didn’t know what to say. That was awful. He couldn’t imagine having to live with that. “What does it feel like?” Steve stopped to consider this, like he had a difficulty putting it into words.  
“Like something’s pinching my air off,” he said. “It’s weird. It’s like I’m surrounded by air, but there’s never enough. I’m breathing as hard as I can and it’s not going in.” Bucky sucked in a deep breath, overly aware now of how well he was able to breathe all the time, and felt bad.  
“How does that happen?” He asked and Steve shrugged.  
“I dunno,” he said. “But it just does. When I’m running or moving around a lot and sometimes when I’m just sitting there.”  
“When you’re just sitting there?!” Bucky cried. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t fight this off for Steve. He couldn’t save him from asthmar or whatever it was. He just had to watch, like he’d had to watch that fight. Bucky shuddered. There was nothing he could do.  
“Could it kill you?” Bucky asked quietly after a minute had gone by and he had fully considered this. Steve nodded solemnly. It was then that Bucky came to an understanding of Steve’s fragile mortality. He himself was invincible, of course, but Steve? Steve was fragile. He was like glass, he had to be protected and watched over. Steve couldn’t even be breathed on. Bucky sat back, his tears drying. He had to protect Steve. Steve needed him, he had to take care of him. Bucky decided then and there that he would watch over Steve forever if he had to. And he really didn’t think he would mind being friends that long.


	76. wintersoldiercoldwarmonsterfacelessemptybeatenkiller

Bucky was all alone when realized that those seven memories and a week was not all he was missing. He had begun to think himself almost lucky that he had gotten out with the greater portion of his identity intact, but it was clear to him now that this wasn’t over.   
He realized it, this downhill slide, when he woke up the next morning and his nightmares had been torturous like they hadn’t been in a long time. He felt a dread deep inside of him and he could feel the holes again.  
James Buchanan Barnes  
James Buchanan Barnes  
James… James...  
More things out of his journal were going, disappearing like lost data, gone without a trace like the rooms hadn’t even been there to be dark in his head in the first place. He didn’t understand, what was going wrong?! Why was he losing more now, so suddenly? His panic rose when he had no one to go to. He couldn’t bare to see Natasha and Steve again, he couldn’t forgive them just yet, but he needed them so badly. He at least needed someone to tell him that he was going to be okay because he couldn’t tell himself. Unfortunately, he knew better than that.  
A memory about Steve and the darkness before him and a sunrise behind him-gone.  
A memory about Natasha cutting his hair in her apartment-gone.  
A memory about a cryo-stasis tube in a storage room-gone.  
James James JAMES  
It must be his fault, he was doing something wrong and he didn’t know what it was.   
Winter Soldier Cold War monster Faceless murderer  
He was going to become hollow and then he would never have a chance to see Steve again, to forgive Natasha.  
Winter Soldier James Bucky Bucky Bucky   
He was losing himself deep in the recesses of his mind. He wondered how it would happen. He would lose his past, and then his present. He would forget loving Natasha and becoming comfortable with Steve. He would forget how to laugh again, he would lose the ability to joke and tease. Then, his humanity would be gone and then his freedom and then his life. Bucky sat on his bed, thinking hard, staring at the floor and shaking violently with fear, trying to just breathe. His journal sat beside him, open, scribbled in. The pages were becoming worn. He had flipped through them all again and again and again that morning, reading, frantic. More memories were circled in red now. His identity was slipping through his fingers like smoke. And it was different now, because it wasn’t a wipe that had done this to him now. He didn’t know what it was. They were just… Gone. Bucky grit his teeth as he thought this and squeezed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath. Then, he called Steve because he absolutely had to.  
“Hello? Bucky? Is something wrong?” Steve answered the phone on the first ring, hastily, as though he knew that for Bucky to contact him right now, something must be so wrong. Bucky swallowed and stared at the wall.  
“I’m losing it all,” he said, very slowly and very quietly. He closed his eyes again. He wondered if he was looking for comfort or he simply wanted Steve to know. His stomach felt that feeling of falling and it made him sick. Queasiness raised goosebumps on his arm. “I’m losing everything now.” There was a silence on the other end.  
“I’m coming over right now,” Steve said.  
“Please don’t,” Bucky replied, but he was answered with beeping tones of an already closed call. After everything, Bucky realized he hadn’t gotten anywhere at all. He’d thought he had been getting better, but now, just like before, he felt a panic rising in his throat and he did not want to see Steve.  
He decided then, why he had called. It had been a goodbye, hadn’t it? He was without an identity and without friends and even without a limb and he didn’t want to die, but he didn’t quite want to go on, either. It was just so hard. He couldn’t believe that there was more laboring heaviness to feel on his heart, more for him to lose. There was always another step lower than the one he was on and although it sounded like an inspiring thought to one who might be an optimist, to Bucky, it was only exhausting. He always had further to fall, even when he thought he had hit the rocks at the bottom.  
But Bucky remembered how he had felt the first few weeks away from Hydra and he didn’t want to see Steve. He would lock the doors, he would leave his apartment, he would throw Steve out if he had to. The bottom line was that Bucky wasn’t okay and he needed to be alone and Steve had lied to him and betrayed his trust. If anything, Bucky avoided him for that reason.  
So when Steve arrived minutes later, pounding on the door Bucky had locked, Bucky was silent, leaning on the wall all the way across the room, keeping his distance and wetting his lips and watching the door bend under the strength of Steve’s blows. He wasn’t quite sure how he was standing up straight. His legs were weak. He was so scared of what he would be if he lost everything again.  
Winter Soldier Cold War monster Faceless Empty Frozen murderer  
The Winter Soldier had killed so many people. So many. He couldn’t remember them all, not their names or their faces, but he could feel in his head the shadows of kills he couldn’t even number. He was so sorry. He didn’t want to be that again.  
Steve was shouting, and now he could hear Natasha’s voice joining him. Bucky tried to remember to breathe so the fear didn’t bring him to vomiting. Suddenly, there was just too much, too much of everything. The world felt muted, but his thoughts were loud and raucous.  
“Stop!!” Bucky yelled, grabbing his head, his voice escalating. “Stop it!!” In the real world, the pounding and shouting outside quieted. Bucky looked up and realized that he had been talking both to Steve and to himself. Now, all was quiet, but he was sure Steve and Natasha weren’t gone. Bucky staggered over to the door and leaned himself against it now. The metal edges under his shirt dug into the wood and he could feel it pressing in on him.  
“James, what’s wrong?” He heard Natasha say.  
“I told you, it’s all going,” he said back through the door, and then tried to elaborate. “I can feel it going. I feel like there’s less of me.” He turned now and pressed his back to the door. He wanted to sit, but he wouldn’t allow himself. Instead, he took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Behind his eyes, there was nothing. No memories, no images, just black and for some reason, that scared him so much he opened his eyes again quickly. He could hear Natasha and Steve muttering to each other. He heard the words repression and defense mechanism and mental block and he reminded himself again to breathe.  
“Buck, can you let us in?” Steve asked gently and Bucky remembered his promise to Steve, to not cut him out. But how could he keep that promise now? Everything was so complicated. There was no trust anymore. He shook his head.  
“No,” he said. “Don’t even try, I’ll stop you.” Steve seemed to stop and consider this.  
“Okay,” he replied. And he kept talking, he and Natasha, they were both saying things, but Bucky pushed himself off the door and walked back to his bedroom and shut the door behind him so he couldn’t hear them and lay down on his bed and tried not to think too hard about any one thing. But no matter how hard he tried, he could still hear it, constant like drums beating out of the dark spots in his head, a tune he couldn’t forget among the throngs of memories that he could.  
Winter Soldier Cold War monster faceless empty beaten killer


	77. Happiness

Bucky got out of his bed sometime later, when the pounding stopped and he could breathe in and out and in and out without reminding himself. He wanted to see Steve now because of the things he had lost and was losing, but it was early in the morning, 3 or 4 AM, he forgot the moment he looked away from the clock because his concentration was blurring. There was just so much on his mind and it was complicated because he wanted things with Steve to be like they were before, but Bucky couldn’t forgive him, not now, couldn’t trust him, not now. Still, although Bucky was angry and he wanted to break his promise and he wanted to cut Steve out, he knew, in the long run that this was bigger than anything. Bucky could be losing it all and he needed to talk to Steve.  
It was too late either way to call him. But he figured he could still leave a message.  
Steve’s cell phone buzzed and Bucky prayed he wouldn’t pick up and he must have either been out or asleep or in another room because Steve didn’t pick up and Bucky let out a sigh of relief. He reminded himself to speak English.  
“Hello, this is Steve Rogers, leave a message. Thanks.”  
Bucky realized he didn’t know what to say or how to say it and he hung up immediately.  
He did this two more times before he could finally pull himself together.  
“Hello, this is Steve Rogers, leave a message. Thanks.”  
“I don’t know what it is or why it is, but if I keep losing myself like this, there’s not going to be anything left. I don’t want you to go, but I… I’m not… But I don’t forgive you, oka-” Then there was a beep and Bucky realized he had been speaking too slowly, taking too long of pauses and he ground his teeth together and called again. Message four.  
“Hello, this is Steve Rogers, leave a message. Thanks.”  
“I mean I’m not Bucky!! I-I… I mean I’m not who you used to know. Maybe I used to be. But I’m the-the Winter Soldier, that’s all that’s left of me now. I was never meant to be whole or happy, I’m… You…”  
Message five.  
“Hello, this is Steve Rogers, leave a message. Thanks.”  
“Ugh! What I’m trying to say is that if you’re here to see me be the person you used to know, then you-you shouldn’t expect much. Don’t expect anything!”  
“Buck?” Steve’s sleepy voice replied and Bucky froze. He hadn’t heard Steve pick up. He cursed aloud, not in English, and had to stop and remind himself what language he had to speak. “Bucky, it’s like… It’s three in the morning, are you okay?” Bucky didn’t answer. “Did you want to talk now?” Bucky could hear Steve getting out of bed, sitting up, slowly waking.  
“You would talk to me right now?” Bucky asked, his voice shaky.  
“Yeah, of course,” Steve replied.  
“At three in the morning,” Bucky repeated. With no memories, with no humanness, with nothing to offer you?  
That’s when Bucky realized that Steve really cared about him, and not just recovering the memories of his kid friend in the thirties. He didn’t have to fight to keep Steve with him, he didn’t have to feel the pressure of not living up to Steve’s expectations, or of trying to be Bucky 1.0. Maybe Steve just loved him. And although things were harder after everything that had happened and Bucky could feel his shattered trust like shards of glass inside him, shifting and turning and slicing him up, the realization that it was all of him that Steve cared about, memories or no, was such a freeing one that he had to take a breath with the shock of it all.  
He had nothing to give Steve and Steve was still willing to get up at three in the morning and be his friend.  
Bucky dropped down onto his couch and used the back of his hand to cover his eyes. He felt a lump rising in his throat.  
“What if I’m never… Never really Bucky Barnes again?” Bucky said, putting the phone back to his ear.  
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.  
“I mean, what if I never get those memories back and I’m never the same as before?” Bucky said.  
“You want my opinion?” Steve said, his voice still somewhat thick from sleep. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but whether you get your memories back or not, I don’t think you’re ever going to be ‘the same as before’. But that doesn’t matter, that was never the goal to begin with.”  
“It wasn’t,” Bucky replied before Steve was finished, unsure if it was a question or a statement.  
“It wasn’t,” Steve said with some energy and a surety that calmed Bucky’s panicking heart. “Before-that was years ago. We’ve both changed and being the same as before isn’t even on the radar. That’s not the goal.”  
“Then what is the goal?” Bucky asked.  
“Well…,” Steve said. “It’s about you. What do you think the goal is?” Bucky was quiet. A thousand words ran through his head, things he wanted.  
“I want… I just want to be happy again,” he said quietly. “I think I’ve forgotten what that’s like, but I want it.”  
“Yeah, me too,” Steve said back.  
“I’m just scared I’m never going to be me again,” Bucky continued, leaning forward and away from the back of his couch, putting his elbow on his knee.  
“But Buck… You are Bucky Barnes,” Steve replied. He sounded almost incredulous, as though this was something he hadn’t realized that Bucky struggled with. “That’s not the name of the person from before, that’s your name and it’ll be your name forever, no matter what happens. Your identity isn’t something that’s concrete, okay? People change, but you’re still you,”  
“Okay,” Bucky said and the lump in his throat grew.  
“And I’m still gonna be your friend, okay?” Steve added and Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, hot wetness rolling down his face.  
“Okay,” he whispered again.  
“How’re you feeling?” Steve asked after a while and Bucky used the back of his hand to wipe at his face.  
“Thank you,” he only said quietly.  
“Don’t mention it, buddy,” Steve replied. “And hey,” he added loudly, yawning. “It’s been almost a week, you think Tony’s done with your arm yet? Maybe he’ll call in the morning.”  
“Yeah,” Bucky said, smiling a little and still trying to dry his face. “Think he’ll make it gold and red, too?” He didn’t know what he was doing, joking. He didn’t want to forgive Steve yet, but he knew he needed this. Talking with Steve, he felt more human and more himself than he had that entire week. Steve laughed.  
“You know, he’s got, like, blasters in his palms,” he said.  
“My other arm couldn’t do that,” Bucky replied as a joke and then Steve hesitated.  
“You know, I don’t know how we’re going to get your arm back, Buck,” Steve said and Bucky frowned again.  
“We’re going to have to,” he said.  
“Why?” Steve asked and Bucky realized that Steve really didn’t know. Bucky wasn’t sure if he could explain.  
“I…,” he started. “I mean, Steve, it’s my arm. That’s just it. I don’t want another one, I want my arm back.”  
“Even if Tony can make you one just as good?” Steve asked.  
“Even if Tony makes an exact replica,” Bucky replied adamantly. “It’s not just that I want to have four limbs again,” he continued. “That’s my arm and they stole it from me. I can’t let them have it.” Steve was quiet for a moment.  
“Then we’ll get it back for you,” he said, and then Bucky could almost hear the dorky grin on his face by the way his words lightened. “And it’s pretty cool.” Bucky smiled a little.  
“Yeah, it is. I could definitely beat you at arm-wrestling with my left,” he replied and Steve laughed out loud. Bucky loved how much Steve laughed. He always seemed to be able to laugh when Bucky couldn’t.  
“I think that would qualify as cheating,” he said.  
“Would it, though? Because you still have an advantage with both arms, I just get super-strength in one arm,” Bucky replied.  
“Alright, that’s it, first thing we’re doing when you get your arm back is testing this out and seeing who wins,” Steve said.  
“I refuse to take responsibility for any broken tables or walls because of this,” Bucky said and he laughed with Steve then.  
What do you think the goal is?  
I just want to be happy.  
“But I’m probably keeping you up,” Bucky said hastily. “It’s still three?”  
“It’s more like three-forty, but yeah,” Steve said.  
“Okay then,” Bucky said, beginning to feel bad now. “I guess I’ll go.”  
“Do you want to go?” Steve asked and Bucky really didn’t. He liked pretending things were okay with Steve, he liked being human.  
“I guess not,” Bucky said. “But you were sleeping.”  
“I’m awake now, Buck,” Steve said. “If you leave, I’ll probably just stay up and draw.” Bucky considered this and then he knew there was something he had to do.  
“Steve, about… About the Natasha thing…,” Bucky started and heard Steve suck in a breath.  
“Bucky, I’m so sorry, you have every right to be mad,” Steve said.  
“I’m not mad at you,” Bucky said as he realized within himself slowly that it was true. “I was, but I forgive you now. I… I don’t think you understood… What it meant to me.”  
“I wanted you to be happy, Bucky,” Steve said. There was a desperation in his voice, a straining. “She made you so happy. And it was her secret to keep.”  
“I know,” Bucky said. “But Steve, I… I forgive you, but I don’t… I can’t… Trust you anymore. Not like I did before.” Steve was silent for a long time. Bucky thought maybe they could be different things, the trust and the forgiveness, two separate entities. Because he didn’t resent Steve, not so much, not anymore. It had dissolved away with this phone call and Bucky knew how Steve hated himself for it, for everything. But maybe they could be friends and Bucky could forgive him, but he didn’t know if they could ever be so close because Bucky couldn’t let him lie to him again. “Steve?” Bucky said quietly, his voice breaking as the silence went on and on. “Are you there?”  
“Yeah,” Steve replied. “I know, I understand. I thought you might say something like that.”  
“I’m sorry,” Bucky said and Steve let out a breath.  
“No, Bucky, I’m sorry,” he said and Bucky swallowed and blinked, staring up at the ceiling.  
“I know,” he said quietly. There was another pause and then Steve continued, hesitantly, as though willing to stop and turn back if Bucky gave any sign that he didn’t want to continue, but Bucky did. He couldn’t trust him, like he couldn’t trust anyone, but he could still talk to him.  
“Have you talked to her about it yet?” Steve asked and Bucky said no.  
“I don’t know what to say,” Bucky said. “I don’t remember her. And I thought she would understand that I needed to know.”  
“She wanted to tell you,” Steve said. “She felt so bad, but I don’t think she knew how to say it.”  
“Yeah, she told me,” Bucky said, even though his own personal assessment of how Natasha had felt about the lie had been different. He wasn’t certain what he saw in her eyes about the way she had lied to him, but it was endlessly more complicated than Steve said. He rubbed his eyes again, heavy with exhaustion he was only now realizing. “I want to forgive her so badly,” he continued. “But I don’t think things can ever go back to normal now.”  
“She still loves you,” Steve added quietly. “She wants to make things right.”  
“Yeah, I…,” Bucky said. “I still love her.”  
“I’m sorry, Bucky,” Steve said and Bucky sighed, leaning back into his couch.  
“Me too,” he said, then smiled softly. “Think she’d mind if I woke her up, too?” Steve chuckled.  
“Honestly? I think she’d be more than happy,” Steve said. But Bucky knew that wasn’t something he could do. Not yet. He wasn’t ready to face her yet.  
As the morning wore on, Bucky thought more about being happy. It was a complicated thing, happiness, especially now when he had so many pieces to pick up and so many shards going missing. He didn’t know if Steve made him happy or simply distracted him from his sadness, and then again, he also wasn’t sure if there was a difference.


	78. Prosthetic

When Tony called both Bucky and Steve a few days later, he sounded significantly less confident about his abilities to build an arm equal to the one Bucky had. But he had a prototype and that was progress and he offered to meet them that very day.  
“The cybernetics are difficult to perfect,” Tony was saying to Bucky over the phone. “But this’ll at least be something.”  
“It’s okay,” Bucky replied. “It’s only temporary, I can live with less than perfect.”  
They met at Bucky’s apartment this time, Bucky and Steve peering over Tony’s shoulders as he opened a case and revealed the prototype arm.  
It was definitely different, that was for sure. Bucky stared as Tony lifted it out and held it up. It wasn’t metal, it was made out some sort of white and silver plastic-like material. There was no cover either, and a lot of the circuitry and moving parts inside were exposed. There was some sort of strange cord reaching from the wrist to the back of the shoulder and it hung, swinging like a broken piece.  
“Is that supposed to be attached?” Bucky asked about the cord, concerned.   
“No, it has to attach here,” Tony explained. He seemed less than thrilled about it. “It’s for movement, to make the electrical impulses from the socket travel to your fingers faster, since fine motor skills are difficult to recreate. It shouldn’t get too in the way.”  
“Okay,” Bucky said.  
“And why is all this exposed?” Steve asked, reaching forward to poke at the circuitry until Tony pulled it away from him, giving him a glare.  
“Careful,” he cautioned. “I was worried about fitting too many covers over the important parts. I don’t want it to overheat or overstress.”  
“There were covers over his other one,” Steve challenged and Tony glared harder.  
“I don’t think you people appreciate how hard it was to make this,” he said. “It’s nothing like the suits.”  
“I thought you said your suits were prosthetics,” Bucky said, teasing him and Tony rolled his eyes.  
“You resent that, huh?” He said and Bucky shrugged his shoulder passive aggressively, but he was smiling. He felt better today, he felt like he could face himself today. He could smile today. Today was a Good Day.  
“Alright,” Bucky said and reached over himself to pull his shirt up off his back. “Let’s try it on.” Tony began to situate the prosthetic and Bucky angled his shoulder, watching him.  
“This might feel a little different than your other one, okay?” Tony said cautiously and Bucky shrugged.  
“I know,” he said and Tony frowned.  
“And it’s going to hurt, sorry,” Tony added fast and Bucky only got the chance to begin saying, “What?” before Tony shoved the replacement prosthesis into his socket and there was a click and suddenly Bucky’s words jumped into a scream. He saw spots and there was electricity coursing through his entire chest. He felt a pain in his heart and his head was screaming and all he could see was bright orange flashes, like he’d stared into a blinking light for too long. The pain was so sharp and so distinct that he could practically taste it, bright in his mouth like angry, bitter citrus.  
When everything calmed down, from his mouth to his chest, and everything dulled and receded, Bucky realized he was sitting on the floor, like his legs had crumpled under him and had forgotten to hold his weight while he was gone inside the pain. Tony was on one side, his left, holding his new shoulder, and Steve was on his right, kneeling.  
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Bucky said and kept saying, attempting to convince himself as much as Steve and Tony. Steve looked beyond furious. His hands were in fists and he was glaring at Tony.  
“What the hell was that?!” He cried.  
“Yeah, what…,” Bucky added, his head still spinning just in the slightest.  
“I thought it would be easier just to do it fast and get it over with!” Tony said. “And see, I was right, he’s fine now.”  
“Why did it do that?” Bucky asked, bewildered. “That’s never happened to me before.”  
“It’s not going to go off and on as easily as your other one does,” Tony replied apologetically. “The way it connects to your nerves through this socket is, uh, brutal to say the least. This socket wasn’t made to accompany anything but your other one and getting these to work together is like trying to put a square peg in a circular hole.”  
“Why didn’t you just make a circular peg,” Steve replied angrily.  
“I’m sorry, the circular peg is with Hydra right now, how about we just go knock on the door and ask for it back?” Tony shot back bitterly. “Look, this is the best I could do right now. Earlier prototypes might have knocked him out, or killed some of his nerve endings. This may sting a little, but it’s safe.”  
“Sting a little,” Bucky retorted and barked a laugh. “Sting a little.”  
“Bottom line, he’s fine,” Tony said hastily. Steve glared a little more, then looked down to Bucky.  
“Can you move it?” He asked and Bucky realized that through the pain, he had nearly forgotten to try. “Does it work?” Bucky looked down at his left arm, which, he admitted, was a bit of a novelty, he wasn’t used to that anymore, and Tony let him go and he tried to pick it up. His arm moved, then his elbow. The cord swung when he moved, but Bucky didn’t care. There was a delay in reaction time, however, and Bucky cared a lot more about that. He had to think very consciously about bending his elbow and then a half a second later, his elbow would bend. He rolled his shoulder and it was a little slow, too. He raised his hand to his face, all white silicon plastic and silver stainless steel, like kitchenware. His fingers were mostly uncovered at the joints and there were caps on the tips of each finger and they moved slowly and jerkily when he tried to bend each one.  
“There’s a delay,” Bucky mentioned.  
“I know,” Tony said. “It really shouldn’t be the hard part, catching the electrical impulses, but it’s hard for the material to respond in time. I’m working on perfecting that.”  
“Hmm,” Bucky replied as he studied his new arm, looking at every angle, staring deep into the cords on the inside, moving it slowly and quickly and slowly again.  
“But for now, is it okay?” Tony asked and Bucky nodded.   
“Yeah, yeah, it’s great,” he said and smiled at Tony. “Thank you.” Bucky realized that Natasha was missing here. As angry as he was, as hurt as he was, he wanted her here and he wanted her to tell him again that he was doing okay and that, what had she said? Her exact words, what were they? That his arm didn’t make him less? Didn’t make him undesirable? He wanted to hear that from her, he wanted her to convince him again. And he wanted to be able to hold her with two arms. He wanted to celebrate having four limbs with her. But the secrets she kept had ruined everything.  
“I have a copy back at my place and I’m going to keep tweaking,” Tony said, standing up and offering Bucky his hand. Bucky took it with his new left gingerly and let Tony pick him up, paying close attention to the way the arm moved and grabbed and the way it felt when it pulled, making note that it didn’t exactly feel good, but like he said, he could live with it. Steve stood with them and Bucky thanked Tony again before he left and he tried to be a good host and thought maybe it would be polite to offer him something to drink or to bring up payment, which was something he hadn’t yet done and it was eating at him, but Tony was out the door and flying away before Bucky could try.  
“What do you think about it?” Steve asked once Tony was out of earshot and Bucky looked down at his new arm and thought that he wasn’t quite sure.  
“It’s not my arm,” he commented finally as he looked at it, watching the wrist turn awkwardly and the fingers bend jerkily. It was all rather stilted and slow and ungraceful. In fact, it was less human than his metal arm and he couldn’t believe that he could say that, but he could. He had taken for granted how graceful and human-like his other arm had been. He remembered how he had even hated the small whirring sounds it made and the clicks he could hear when the plates slide over his forearm as he moved or the way he couldn’t snap with his metal fingers, but now, he missed all those things. “It’s so… Future-y. And yet it still doesn’t work just how I want it to.” Steve smiled.  
“Welcome to the future. That’s been the story of my life,” he said.  
“How much you wanna bet this thing doesn’t have super-strength,” Bucky added thoughtfully as he inspected his arm and before he knew it, Steve was on the other side of the kitchen island with his elbow on the counter, looking excited. Bucky rolled his eyes and put his arm down, careful with the cord. “Don’t break it,” he warned as he wrapped his new fingers around Steve’s palm.   
“I’ll be really, really gentle,” Steve replied with a snarky grin and Bucky couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not.  
“Okay, one, two,” Bucky said, and then hesitated and looked up at Steve, who raised an eyebrow cockily.  
“Scared?” He asked.  
“Not on your life, you punk,” Bucky shot back. “Three.” Steve had his plastic hand on the counter in seconds, but Bucky had stopped putting up any fight the instant Steve began to push. He couldn’t. The lightning pain had gripped him again, like he had twisted it wrong, and he could feel the shock ripple through his chest.  
“GyaAAH!!” Bucky screamed and Steve let go, backing off as Bucky jerked his arm back and reached up to grab his shoulder where the plastic met the metal because it felt like it had yanked right there and he had been shot with a taser, or a lightning bolt.  
“Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I really was going easy, are you okay?” Steve was saying. Bucky looked up at him, his eyes wide. He blinked and let out a breath.  
“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m okay, it’s alright,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault, it’s just this… This arm. It just… It hurts.”  
“Does it still hurt?” Steve asked, concerned, and Bucky rubbed his shoulder and shook his head.  
“Not anymore. But it doesn’t feel good,” he said grumpily.  
“Okay, well, that’s good to know. Arm wrestling is off the table for now,” Steve said and Bucky forced a laugh and nodded.  
“That’s a good rule for right now,” he agreed. “Lets save it for my actual arm.”


	79. Different

His arm also wasn’t waterproof. It actually couldn’t lift much at all and it overstressed rather quickly. If he held it the wrong way, it caused Bucky a significant amount of pain. Bucky was quickly becoming disenchanted. But despite all this, he had to admit how much he’d missed using two arms. He realized how much he had been avoiding his reflection, thinking about how broken he looked, and now, even though this arm was a nuisance and less human and painful, at least he was put together again and he could stand to look at himself.  
And despite everything, he still found himself at Natasha’s door later that day, pressing the button and waiting. He didn’t know what he was doing, but although he was hurt, he found that he forgot to be angry around her.  
She opened the door fast, before he had expected, and he felt as though he hadn’t had time to adequately prepare himself for seeing her. Oh, she was beautiful. He wanted to close his eyes, try to remember seeing her face through the eyes of the Winter Soldier, but he was afraid of what might happen if he did. Maybe this had been what Natasha was trying to protect him from. Or maybe her secret-keeping was selfish. He still wasn’t sure.  
Natasha’s face was a mixture of confusion and sadness and other emotions Bucky couldn’t label as they looked at each other.  
“James,” Natasha said and she sounded so terribly sad.  
“I wanted to show you this,” Bucky said and held up his left arm in front of him. “Tony made it. I thought you’d want to see, was all.” Natasha stepped outside cautiously and Bucky stepped forward, trying to let her know that he was okay with her being close to him, and then she took his hand in hers and examined it.   
“Is it better than your last one?” She asked and he scoffed.  
“No. It’s slow and it’s fragile and it hurts. But it’s something,” he said.  
“It hurts?” Natasha said, alarmed, looking up at him. She was so beautiful. He looked away from her face and nodded.  
“I have to be careful how I turn it. Tony said it doesn’t match the socket,” he said.  
“And what’s this?” Natasha continued to examine, touching and holding up the cord that swung under his elbow. Bucky tried to stifle a grin with how silly it was.  
“That’s, uh,” he smiled. “You know, I really don’t know. But it does something.” Natasha grinned, looking down now at the exposed parts on his forearm and all Bucky could hear was the small whirring and clicking sounds the arm made when it wasn’t doing anything.  
“I’m sorry it’s not your other arm, James,” Natasha said and Bucky frowned and nodded quietly.  
“Yeah, I am, too,” he said. “But I’ll get it back.” It was Natasha’s turn to nod now and she looked up at his face.  
“I know you will,” she said. Gently, Bucky pulled his arm away from her and began to step back, began to walk away. He missed her too much and the pain of seeing her now was beginning to overwhelm him. It was time to leave. He thought of how he had forgiven Steve, and it was easier with Steve, because Bucky knew he had only meant well and it hadn’t exactly been his secret to tell. But Natasha… She was supposed to understand. She was supposed to be forthright with him. It was the hiddenness of his past that she had concealed and no matter how easy it seemed to be to forget the hurt when he found himself in her eyes, he had to remind himself that he couldn’t trust her. Everything was different now.  
But Bucky still felt torn because he missed her and he felt as though he needed her and now, he didn’t know how long he had left with the memories he had of her, what with the slipping of his mind down a slope.  
He didn’t know what to do. All he knew was that in the end, everything hurt.  
“Can we talk about this?” Natasha asked hastily before Bucky left. He turned to her expectantly, a few steps down the hall now and almost at his own door.  
“Of course,” he said quietly. “What would you like to say?” Natasha met his eyes.  
“I just want to say I’m sorry,” she said.  
“Thank you,” Bucky replied and he thought she would continue, but she looked away and swallowed, beginning to back into her doorway again. He watched her.  
“If things could be like they were…,” Natasha said and she was almost so quiet that he didn’t hear her.  
“They can’t,” Bucky replied.  
“Never?” She said. She was halfway into her room now, holding the door frame and looking towards him. Bucky looked down and shifted his feet. Between his feelings of inadequacy and the broken trust between them, he genuinely wasn’t sure.  
“Steve…,” Bucky started quietly, realizing that this would be one of those times where he would have difficulty expressing exactly what he wanted to say. “Steve said that things can change and you can still be you. Maybe we don’t want things to be like they were, in the long run.”  
“I thought we were happy,” Natasha said.  
“We were,” Bucky said. “But that’s not what I mean. Maybe we can never be the same, but maybe that won’t be a bad thing. Maybe we can be a different kind of happy.” It was true that happiness was a field that Bucky was only beginning to examine, but he knew he wanted Natasha in his life. He just didn’t know how anymore and that was what they had to learn.  
“Can I prove myself to you? Make it up to you?” Natasha asked and Bucky looked away, letting out a breath. He honestly wasn’t sure. These were difficult questions.  
“I hope, Nat,” he said. “I want to forgive you, you know.”  
“How?” She asked desperately. She was leaning on the doorframe now, closer to him. “How do I fix this??” Bucky shook his head, looking at her.  
“I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I could tell you, but I really don’t know.” Natasha looked down at the carpet in quiet thought. Bucky put his hands in his pockets as he looked at her and waited.  
“I love you,” she said to him.  
“I love you, too,” he replied.


	80. Papercut

Bucky’s journal was very, very personal to him. He wrote in it when he felt like he couldn’t express himself out loud, in English or in Russian, and he censored nothing. He wrote down in detail everything he remembered when he got snippets of images and memories through cracks in the dam. He wrote about each day, not because he had ever suspected that he might lose those days again, but because he had much to say about them and he liked to put in words how he felt when each new, complicated emotion arose.  
So this journal was an unbelievably valuable asset to Bucky as he lost more and more and became more and more afraid. This book, with the worn pages and the red circles and the black ink, was the sole sum of everything Bucky had ever remembered since his escape and everything he had ever experienced. When he began to forget, or repress, or whatever it was that was happening to him, rereading the pages gave him more comfort than not because now, he wasn’t clueless. He may not know those things inside himself intimately anymore, which was certainly a problem, but he knew them and that was important. And he would read that entire journal every single day if he had to in order to keep himself and to keep Steve and to keep Natasha, to keep the memories, to try and keep the progress he had made.  
Like conspiracy theorists who imagine the worst in their fear, Bucky was beginning to theorize about what could be happening to him. What if he was somehow being remotely wiped? What if being ripped from the wiping the last time had done something damaging to his brain? What if he couldn’t heal this time? He didn’t understand it. He remembered the words he had heard Steve and Natasha using earlier when he realized that he was missing things. What had they suspected, repression? Bucky didn’t know much about that, but it was the most hopeful theory he had to cling to. If it was only him, his fear in his mind putting these things away, there was so much more of a chance that he could get them back.  
Bucky’s flip phone had finally given up the ghost due to his past outbreak of throwing it at the wall, and he dropped it in the trash after trying and failing to call Steve up again. This time, he put his journal in his pocket and walked to Steve’s apartment.  
Inside with Steve later, Bucky sat at his kitchen counter and thumbed through his journal thoughtfully while Steve explained the idea of repression.  
“I don’t know, it could just be the trauma of everything that’s been happening lately,” Steve was saying. “That mission gone wrong, the thing with you and Nat. Maybe there’s just too much stress.”  
“But you really do think it’s just that?” Bucky asked quietly as he fingered the pages of his book. “There’s nothing else wrong, I can fix this?”  
“I’m sure,” Steve said. “You’ll be fine. It actually occurred to me a while ago that with the way you’re supposed to heal yourself, you should probably be getting memories back faster, so I think you’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s just active now, taking things from you, instead of just holding things back.” Bucky thought of the dam in his head when Steve said this and nodded slowly to himself.  
“Guess it’s possible,” he said.  
“So I think you’ll be okay,” Steve finished. “Now it’s just a matter of-” But as he was speaking, Bucky purposefully pulled his thumb across the edge of one of the pages, fast, and he could feel the skin split. “Hey!” Steve interrupted himself, alarmed, as he watched. Bucky turned his thumb around as blood beaded up to the surface, then watched as it took a full minute for his skin to slowly seal itself back together. It was as though the cut had never happened.  
“Well that’s something,” Bucky said quietly. Then, he paper cut himself again and watched the same thing happen for a second time. Steve was staring, open-mouthed, as Bucky reached to do it one more time and he grabbed his hand from him.  
“Hey, stop,” he said. Bucky looked up and yanked his hand away.  
“Did you see that?” he asked. “It didn’t even take a minute to heal.”  
“Yeah, it’s a miracle, now cut it out,” Steve growled.   
“No, look at this, I’ve actually never seen this before,” Bucky protested and cut his hand again before Steve could stop him. He held his palm up to Steve’s face and he could feel beads of wetness roll, but before five minutes were even up, he couldn’t feel the sting anymore. Steve looked scared.  
“Please don’t do that anymore,” he said quietly as Bucky pulled his hand back and rubbed the dripped blood off on his pant leg.  
“Why?” He said. “I’m fine.”  
“Just don’t,” Steve replied and Bucky complied silently, setting his journal down and pushing it across the counter. He could see a few vague streaks of redness across the edges and looked back down at his hand. People at Hydra were experimented on and died so that he could papercut himself and be okay. Bucky swallowed and put his hand down.  
“What does that make me?” He asked Steve. Steve was looking at him hard, his eyebrows furrowed.  
“I dunno,” he said. “I guess superhuman? Like me?” Bucky scoffed darkly.  
“Superhuman? Possibly,” he said. “Like you?” He made a ‘pfft’ sound with his mouth.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asked. Bucky hated how he sounded so concerned now, so ridiculously gentle. That tone hadn’t left his voice. It bugged him.  
“You’re a superhero,” Bucky said. “There’s a difference. I’m just a guy who sits in his apartment all day and papercuts his thumbs.”  
“You could be a superhero, Buck,” Steve said gently and Bucky smirked. It was a childish word, superhero. It was almost ridiculous.  
“Yeah, superheroes defend,” Bucky said and shook his head. “I don’t defend.”  
“Says who?” Steve demanded. “What, says Hydra? The Bucky I know-”  
“There isn’t a Bucky you know,” Bucky stood abruptly out of his seat, his hands flat on the table, staring into Steve’s face, his voice growling and too loud, bursting out of the silence with an exploding, vehement rage. ‘The Bucky he knew’, DAMN him! There was no Bucky he knew! Steve glared back.  
“There is,” Steve said back with characteristic determination, like an unmovable force. “And I’m looking at him.” Bucky ground his teeth, frozen. “And Bucky, you can’t say you don’t defend because even you told me you remember defending me! You taught me what it means to defend someone!!”  
“Remember?!” Bucky cried. “I remember nothing! It’s all gone! I have nothing!”  
“You have me!!” Steve roared, pounding his fist on the counter across from Bucky and before Bucky realized what he was doing, his right fist was swinging through the air right at Steve’s face. Steve ducked just in time, but Bucky couldn’t duck his retaliation shot. He barely felt the pain shoot through his face however, because before Steve could pull back, Bucky was pulling himself over the counter with the fierce swiftness of the Winter Soldier and throwing himself at Steve. They clattered to the floor, yelling, and Bucky dodged Steve’s fists while trying to throw shots of his own. They were rolling across the floor, wrestling each other in a pain-fueled rage and Bucky was beginning to scare himself. He kept moving his left and expecting to see metal, kept feeling his hip and expecting to grab knives. He knew he didn’t want to hurt Steve, he never wanted to hurt him, but pain was blinding him now and he was so angry with everything in a way he hadn’t been in a long time and although he could feel the Winter Soldier coming up inside him like something sick crawling up his throat, the rage was so alive that Bucky couldn’t help but embrace it.  
That is, until Bucky drew back his left as far back as he could, expecting in his mind the super-powered strength of a vibranium fist, and then his head exploded. He barely felt the hit Steve got in while his vision became bright orange and electricity pulsed through him. He didn’t realize he was screaming until his back hit the floor behind him and he could suddenly see again. Steve was standing over him, breathing hard and staring, his mouth open and his eyes wide.  
“Bucky, Bucky, are you okay?” Bucky rolled over, groaning and clutching his shoulder. He was done fighting, that was for sure, but he wasn’t going to let Steve pick him up. He pushed himself to his feet, breathing hard, his hands beginning to shake, and gave Steve one last glare, before storming to the door and slamming it behind him. Outside, he stopped and closed his eyes and took a deep breath, just to let the world around him settle, then continued walking home. In his bathroom mirror, he could see bruises already becoming shadows on his face and he wanted to laugh. It was sick. He wanted to write, he wanted to put down in words what had just happened to him, but he realized with a sinking feeling that he had left his journal at Steve’s. Oh no, oh no. Bucky rubbed his eyes, he was exhausted, he didn’t want to go back, but he had to. That journal was personal.  
Hastily, Bucky left his apartment again and began to cross the road to Steve’s. He met him in the foyer, the book already in his hand as though Bucky had caught him in the act of returning it. Bucky snatched it away from him.  
“Did you look at it?” Bucky asked.  
“No,” Steve said. He was going to have a black eye, Bucky noticed. He also noticed that his own black eye was already healing. Bucky looked down and thumbed through his book again before looking back up.  
“How do I know,” he asked and Steve stared at him, the obvious answer unspeakable. “What, do I just… Trust you?” The corners of Bucky’s mouth turned up cynically. “That’s a joke.” Bucky turned to leave now, angrily.  
“I didn’t look at it, Bucky,” Steve called to him. Bucky felt his anger flare.  
“Screw you, Steve,” he called back without turning, pushing through the apartment front doors and waving his right hand over his head. He both hated and loved his rage in equal parts. It made him say and do things he would regret, it made him fight with Steve, it made him feel ill. But it also brought a fire to him that made him feel alive and he didn’t want to let that go so easily, not after so many years of feeling dead.


	81. ___

Embers are special, see, because they’re the last dying light. And there’s a chance for a fire again inside of them, there’s something burning there, but it’s not burning brightly and it’s not burning steadily. Embers are fragile. They’re small. Embers are what’s left after everything else burns away, when nothing else is there anymore because every last thing went up in smoke and ashes. But the thing is, if you give an ember a push, if a particular breeze comes along, if you add a little more tinder, that ember will light a whole new bonfire. It just needs the right help.  
Bucky once looked up to see everything he was in smoke. He looked back down and saw himself broken and burned. He saw himself an ember, barely the meaning of himself left and nothing else.   
But people can be embers and just because they’re a dying light doesn’t mean they’re the last light. All he needs is the right push, because putting out a fire is easy, but building one again from the embers is hard.


	82. ___

Bucky sat in the Rogers’ kitchen, swinging his feet on one of their wooden chairs, waiting outside of Steve’s room. He wasn’t allowed to go in anymore. Steve was sick again, he had been for a few weeks, but now he was too sick and Mrs. Rogers wouldn’t let Bucky see him. Bucky had already tried pressing his ear to the door. He couldn’t hear anything. He was beginning to feel scared. He was eleven years old now.  
Mrs. Rogers came out of Steve’s room after a while and shut the door behind her. Her eyes were red and she looked exhausted. Bucky looked up at her and watched her force a smile for him.  
“Can I talk to Steve now? Is he awake?” Bucky asked. There was a fear in Bucky that had settled deep inside his stomach years ago. It rose up during times like this, crawling to his throat and strangling him. He was scared that his best friend was going to die and it wasn’t fair. He tried with all his might to deny this fear. There had to be something he could do for Steve. Mrs. Rogers smiled tiredly down at him, but her smile quickly sank as her bottom lip began to tremble.  
“Oh, Bucky, sweetie,” she said. “Come here, come outside with me quickly. I have something to tell you.” The Fear sunk its claws into Bucky’s heart. He couldn’t breathe for a moment.  
“Okay, Mrs. Rogers,” he said quietly and followed her out to the Rogers’ front step. It was a cold day in October and the street stunk and the clouds looked heavy and gross and dead and Bucky seemed to see the world in tones of sepia. He watched Mrs. Rogers pace, one arm wrapped around her stomach and the other up around her mouth. She was on the verge of crying, he could tell, and everything screamed at him and he knew what she was going to say before she said it.  
“Bucky, baby, you’re such a good boy,” Mrs. Rogers said. She had stopped pacing now and she turned to face him, looking down into his face. Bucky didn’t know what to say. She knelt down and wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.  
“Steve’s not going to get better, is he,” Bucky said into her hair and Mrs. Rogers let out a shaking sob. Bucky didn’t know what to do. He stood there and let her hug him until she pulled back and stood up and looked at him and rubbed her wet eyes.  
“Steve’s too sick now,” Mrs. Rogers said in a shaking voice. “This time, it’s hit him hard. But it’s okay, he’ll be in heaven.” She forced another smile now, but it was more like a grimace. “He’ll be in heaven and he’ll be healthy and happy, okay?” Bucky stared at the ground, feeling empty. The Fear dug into his heart and scratched over and over again at the surface of a rage he’d never felt before. He ground his teeth and balled his fists as he glared at the ground. It wasn’t fair!   
There’s no heaven, Bucky thought. People just go in the ground and rot. Bucky didn’t know what to do now with the grief that was sinking in over him like he had found himself at the bottom of an ocean of it.. He walked past Mrs. Rogers and down the steps and went far away, but he couldn’t walk away from the fact that Steve was dying and there was no heaven and Bucky began to scream. He was in some alley, behind some dime-a-dozen deli and went bezerk. He kicked trash cans and flung the lids at the walls and slapped the bricks until his hands were cut and roared with all the strength of rage a heartbroken eleven year old boy could muster. Then, men from the deli turned the corner into the alley, looking shocked and angry, and grabbed him by the arms and hauled him out, kicking and screaming. They yelled at him, but Bucky didn’t hear. His best friend was dying.  
Later that night, Bucky returned to the Rogers’ home and hugged Mrs. Rogers, his eyes on the ground and his face red. She hugged him back and patted his hair and tried again to tell him that it would be okay, but Bucky still felt a chilling numbness in the aftermath of the rage.  
He was allowed to see Steve after that.  
“Hi Steve,” Bucky said quietly, but Steve didn’t reply, so Bucky raised his voice and repeated himself. He couldn’t tell if Steve was too tired or drugged to respond, or if Bucky had spoken too quietly for his bad hearing to pick up. He was usually good about speaking to Steve loudly, but now, there was something shifting in him and he was forgetting. He just didn’t want Steve to go.  
“Hi Bucky,” Steve replied.  
“How are you feeling?” Bucky asked, although he wasn’t sure what kind of answer he would get. Any answer would be a dismaying one because Sarah Rogers had said that Steve was going to die and even if Steve said he felt better, Bucky knew it would make no difference. However, Steve only shrugged under his blankets and stared at the ceiling. His eyes were glazed. His skin was greyish and sallow. Bucky could see his bones sticking up underneath in his cheeks and his wrists. Bucky sat down gingerly on a chair by his bed and pulled his feet up to wrap his arms around his knees.  
“It’s all for nothing,” Steve said. His words were slurred.  
“What do you mean?” Bucky asked, but Steve didn’t seem like he was talking to Bucky anymore.  
“I didn’t ever do anything. I just died. I didn’t do… Anything. My life meant nothing,” Steve said and suddenly, Bucky didn’t like this talk anymore. He didn’t like Steve saying it. Steve had to have hope.  
“You aren’t dead yet,” Bucky said, although moments before, he had believed nothing would make a difference. It was hard to say it outloud, though, and he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to have to do it. “And you did lots of things.” Steve kept staring at the ceiling. Bucky was wiping tears off of his cheeks now. His voice cracked. “Okay, Steve? You aren’t dead and your life means something to me, okay? Okay?”   
Steve looked over at Bucky now.  
“I wanted to do something, Bucky,” Steve said.  
“You did stuff, Steve,” Bucky said back.  
“Don’t cry,” Steve said and Bucky let out a sob that he couldn’t even pretend to try and hide.  
“I don’t know what to do without you,” he blubbered.  
“You won’t have anyone to pull out of fights anymore,” Steve said.  
“You’re more than that!” Bucky cried. “You’re more than that and you mean something and you did stuff with your life, Steve!” But Steve was sinking again in the tide of his sickness and his eyes were glazing again and Bucky leaned forward and put his forehead down on the sheets and bawled loudly.  
Steve’s recovery days later was miraculous. Sarah Rogers thanked God and the doctors and dumb luck and everything she could for Steve’s life back. Bucky had never known relief like he knew it then. He stayed the night at the Rogers’ as they had cake to celebrate and a recovering Steve was regaining the color in his cheeks.  
“You could even be back to school soon,” Bucky said with a grin and Steve looked down and tried to smile back.  
“And you’ll get to ‘save’ me from more fights,” Steve said and he sounded spiteful. Bucky stopped smiling. You’re more than that, Steve, Bucky wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it in a way that translated it into more than words for Steve. You’re life means so much more than that.


	83. Dam

It occurred to Bucky as he contemplated the way Steve had explained his repression, that maybe he was scared to remember. Maybe, some part of him deep inside didn’t want to remember. Maybe the things he knew in his subconscious were so terrible, he had decided without his own consent that he would be better off without them and had constructed a dam for himself to hide from all the terrible monsters that lurked in his thoughts. Bucky stared up at the ceiling, lying on his bed, his arms behind his head, and considered this. He absolutely hated that it sounded plausible. That he would withdraw from it all, that even as he tried to stay and fight, he was really running, running and running and jumping this entire time. And he realized, as he thought this, that he was even scared of being scared.  
I think you’ve been doing this for a long time, Steve had said. It’s just active now, taking things from you, instead of just holding things back. Bucky cringed and squeezed his eyes shut. He had been doing this for a long time. He hadn’t even begun to think it was strange that he hadn’t remembered anything new lately, but he supposed it was. How was he supposed to get these things back now? How was he supposed to tear his own dam down?   
As an exercise in dam-breaking and because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, Bucky closed his eyes and took a deep breath and tried to remember Natasha. He pictured Hydra, however much he hated to, and he pictured being the Winter Soldier again. He tried to see her face with him, tried to pierce a hole in that portion of the dam, slowly, carefully, trying somehow to see inside. He was rewarded with a blistering headache that forced him to stop due to the sharp severity and the expected violent shakes, but he found he could smile in victory, if just in the slightest, because in his head, he could see a flash of red hair and he heard himself say it, say Natalia. And that made the pain worth it.


	84. Trust

It was absolutely killing Steve that Bucky didn’t trust him anymore. He could still hear Bucky’s voice, angry, bitter, What, am I supposed to trust you? Yes! Steve had wanted to shout. Please, trust me!!  
He used to be able to take pride in the fact that he was honest. He tried to always be honest because he so desperately hated being lied to. It twisted his stomach now, knowing that desperation had drawn him to the point where he would lie to his best friend and he couldn’t forgive himself. He wanted to be trustworthy, he wanted to be able to be there for Bucky, but he had destroyed that for the both of them.  
What, am I supposed to trust you?  
Steve could see Bucky reaching for him, he could feel the screaming train next to his body, he could see Bucky fall.  
Trust you? That’s a joke.  
Steve couldn’t take it, he couldn’t stand the guilt. It was too much.  
And Natasha, she lived in lies and secrets and Steve knew that even before this, she had begun to see them all biting back at her. Neither her or Steve even knew where to begin making it up to Bucky.  
Natasha was lying on his couch now, her feet up on the armrests, her hands folded across her chest.  
“Did you talk to the landlord today?” She asked.  
“No,” Steve said. “Did you?” She nodded.  
“He’s sick of the night screaming again,” she replied. “And the… The Hydra break-ins and the ‘general unsuitable behavior for regular tenants’.” Natasha made a face, imitating the landlord’s voice and using air quotes.  
“The man has a point,” Steve said. Natasha looked over at him.  
“We can’t just let him kick Bucky out,” she said.  
“No, I know,” Steve replied. Natasha let out a breath.  
“I’m just really starting to hate this guy,” she said and turned to look at Steve again. “Do you know what he said to me? That… That…-” Natasha cursed foully. “He said ‘this is an apartment building, not a psych ward’. How dare he?”  
“Did you give him the money?” Steve asked tiredly and she nodded.  
“He’ll be quiet for now,” she said.  
“How are we going to tell Bucky the guy wants him gone?” Steve asked.  
“Well, normally, I wouldn’t,” Natasha replied.  
“And look where that got us,” Steve said. He leaned over his knees and scrubbed his face exhaustedly. Natasha sighed heavily.  
“I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “But… It just seems like he would be so much better off not knowing.” Steve glared at her.  
“Did you learn nothing?” Steve demanded angrily. Natasha threw up her hands in defense, staring at the ceiling. Steve noticed that there were dark circles under her eyes.  
“I know, I know, I’m just…,” she sighed. “I’m just saying. I’m not used to this. I’m trying to help.” Steve looked down.  
“I know,” he said. “But so am I.” They sat that way for a long time, thinking, until Steve pulled himself up. “Well,” he said. “It’s not like it’s some horrible secret,” he said. “We just don’t want to do anything behind his back. And he’ll want to hear the complaints. We need to just say something to him.” Natasha looked at him and shifted on his couch.  
“You’re right,” she said. “I’ll tell him tonight, okay?”   
“You will?” Steve asked and Natasha looked at him, disgruntled.  
“Of course,” she said and that night, she did, knocking on his door and waiting until he came with his new arm and his eyes that looked so sad to see her. He was rubbing his head with one hand as he opened the door, looking tired, and Natasha tried to smile at him from the doorway.  
She wanted to show him that she wasn’t keeping secrets anymore, not with anything. She wanted to prove to him that she could be trustworthy.  
And it was difficult because sometimes, especially in Natasha’s eyes, lying wasn’t a bad thing. It was a necessary thing, and a way of life, and sometimes, a good lie could help a lot of people. But if she had to go to extremes to prove to James that she was sorry, then that was what she would do.  
“Hey James,” she said gently. “How are you?” He shrugged and rolled his shoulders. He looked rough around the edges, his eyes were red, he wasn’t smiling.  
“Got a headache,” he said. “Just… Been a long day.” Natasha nodded understandingly and hated how she couldn’t run and embrace him right here and now, couldn’t be intimate, couldn’t offer to help. She had to keep her distance.  
“Steve and I wanted you to know that the landlord… We’ve been paying him off to keep you on. He doesn’t like the disturbances and, geez, James, he’s an ass, don’t worry about him, okay? We just wanted you to know,” Natasha said, studying his face, trying to gauge how he was responding. “We just, we didn’t want you thinking we were doing anything behind your back, okay?” James took his hand away from his head and nodded. He was avoiding her eyes, looking at the ground. He was pursing his lips like he did when he was thinking, furrowing his brow like he did when he was upset. Natasha waited for him to respond. “Promise me you aren’t going to worry about him?” James nodded again, slowly.   
“Thanks,” he said and she nodded and her first instinct was to say, What are friends for? But she didn’t know if she could really say to him that anymore, so instead, she began to back away from his door slowly.  
“If you need anything,” she said before she got too far. “I’m always going to be right here, okay?” James looked up at her, nodding.  
“Am I, uh, gonna get kicked out again?” He asked.  
“I won’t let you,” Natasha replied adamantly. Then, “Do you need something for your headache?” James shook his head, but Natasha felt a level of concern now. Something seemed off. “You’re shaking,” she noticed and was stepping closer to him now again. He looked down at his own hands and frowned at them as though they had given him away.  
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “Natalia-I mean, uh, I mean Natasha-”  
“You can call me whatever you want,” Natasha said. She wanted to take his hands from him and comfort him, but despite her concern, she knew she had to stay steps away from him.   
“I’m trying to remember you,” he admitted and her heart broke.  
“Don’t try, James,” Natasha said to him quietly. “It’ll only hurt.”  
“I’m sure it’s a very pitiful story,” James replied, his voice full of spite. “But I can handle it-”  
“James,” Natasha said and she wanted to hold him. “Bucky, I meant your headaches, the shaking. It’s just going to get worse. How much did you remember?” He looked away and ground his teeth.  
“Next to nothing,” he said.  
“I’d be surprised if you got anything more than that,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic. James stared hard into the ground for a while before looking up to meet her eyes.  
“Why? What do you mean?” He asked and Natasha swallowed.  
“They wiped you twice in a row after they found out. They really, really burned it out of you,” she told him. James’ brow furrowed; he looked stunned.  
“What, twice in a…,” he repeated. “They did??” She nodded.  
“Your handlers were angry,” she said. “They made sure it would never happen again. They hurt you, James, you couldn’t even heal well for a while after that.” James looked stunned.  
“I didn’t know that,” he said, which had been obvious, but he looked so disturbed that she didn’t want to say anything. Instead, she shrugged at him, her eyes pitying.  
“They didn’t want you to,” she replied. “I’m so sorry.”  
“So what are you saying, there’s no hope? I’m… It’s just… Gone?” He asked. He sounded so desperate. His hair was falling in his eyes again and his eyes were so sad. She hated looking at them anymore.  
“I’m just saying don’t hurt yourself in trying,” Natasha said. “I won’t tell you not to try, but if something’s not there, then it’s not there and that’s okay. Don’t push until you get headaches anymore, I don’t want you hurting yourself.” James almost looked angry now, underneath the tiredness and the numbness and the sadness.  
“I’m sorry I can’t remember you,” he said.  
“Don’t be,” she said. “I’m sorry I never told you.”  
“I know,” he replied.


	85. Dangerous

Steve still had that black eye when he met Bucky in front of the apartment at night to catch Fury’s trademark mysterious car to his undisclosed location. Bucky stood in the darkness behind a streetlight, shrugging his jacket up closer around his neck because it was beginning to grow cold while he waited. Steve stepped into the light of the streetlamp a few minutes later and Bucky spoke up from behind him.  
“Hey,” he said scoldingly. “You think you’re in a spotlight?”  
“Huh?” Steve said, turning. Bucky could almost see his breath in the air now.  
“Step back here,” Bucky said from the darkness, nodding his head to gesture Steve beside him. “Have a little discretion.” Steve frowned and ducked out of the light, joining Bucky. Bucky stepped aside and let him, cupping his right hand over his mouth and blowing before shoving it back into his pocket. “Your face looks great, by the way. Black and blue’s a good color on you.” Bucky wasn’t looking, but he could hear Steve snort and he smiled a little.  
“Yeah, good to see I put a real dent in you, too,” Steve replied and Bucky smirked.  
“You did some serious damage here, Rogers,” he replied teasingly. “Took nearly a whole day for the bruises to go away. Bet you’re jealous.”  
“Oh yeah, what’s not to be jealous of,” Steve replied and the thought was so ridiculous and the light-heartedness was so relieving that they both laughed out loud. Bucky smiled over at Steve and Steve was grinning back and Bucky was thinking about how nice it was to have such a relationship where understanding was an apology enough and about how nice it was to even be understood, if only for a little while and if only in portions. It was hopeful and happy and it was better still because sometimes, when you can’t love yourself, you’re endlessly grateful to have friends who can do it for you. But then, Bucky saw the bullet.  
Bucky grabbed Steve’s shoulders and shoved him out of the way, pulling his own arms back just in time for his right jacket sleeve to be torn. He drew his handgun from his pocket inside his jacket rapidly and suddenly, he was all focus, ruthlessness in his eyes. He knew this game well. It was dark, but Bucky followed where he had seen the bullet from and caught a glimpse of something gleaming and that very second, without hesitation, he shot. There was the sound of someone muffling a cry, but Bucky wasn’t done. He was angry now, and although looking back on it, he would realize that his emotions felt muted with the adrenaline and familiarness of the moment, he, and especially Steve, absolutely would not be shot at.  
The Winter Soldier found the sniper on the ground across the street with his bullet in his chest, but he was still trying to point a gun. The Winter Soldier kicked it away from him and then dug his heel into the man’s bullet-wound. His face was blank as the man groaned and he did not feel much.  
The Winter Soldier switched his gun hand, since his left was too weak to do much lifting right now, and used his right to haul the man up to face him.  
“Hydra?” He asked darkly, although, who else would it be? The man spat blood at him and the Winter Soldier frowned deeply. “That’s what I thought.” Another two bullets went through the man’s brain, the barrel pushed up against his temple, and the Winter Soldier flung his body aside. He surveyed the area quickly, scanning and poking around. He found one more sniper and shot him as well, and then he returned his gun to his jacket.  
Steve, standing confused in the dark, heard only the gunshots and muttered words and he thought maybe it would have been prudent to bring his shield. He had no idea what Bucky could be doing out there in the dark.  
When the Winter Soldier rejoined Steve minutes later, hating what he was and feeling sick as the shame began to sink in around the hollowness inside him, fitting itself into the cracks and the slivers, it was difficult now for him to believe that moments earlier, he had been happy.  
“We’re safe for now,” he said quietly and stared at the ground, keeping a good few feet away from Steve. He wouldn’t have blamed Steve if he felt ill watching him. The Winter Soldier felt ill being him.  
“We’ll have to tell Fury they knew we’d be here,” Steve said and Bucky nodded. They stood there a while in silence, both deep in thought. “You’ve gotten way better at that,” Steve added, moving now closer to the Winter Soldier like he hadn’t noticed the purposeful distance. “I mean, you were good during the war, but you’re great now.” Steve was trying to be nice, trying to make things normal, the Winter Soldier thought. He really didn’t know how to respond. He wanted to be lighthearted, but he found he just couldn’t.  
“They were, uh, they were targeting you,” he said with a frown. “Again.” He pointed in front of them, where the first sniper had fallen. “That one was for you.” Then he pointed again, to the left, where the second sniper lay. “And that one was for me.” There was a long silence.  
“You ever, uh,” Steve said after the pause and cleared his throat. “Ever feel like the war never ended?” Bucky shifted his feet.  
“Sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “I think the real war just began.”  
Then, the car pulled up and they both climbed in and made the journey to Fury’s meeting place in a brooding quiet, both of them considering death and war and the sick feeling they each felt in their stomachs.  
“Romanoff brought me this,” Fury said to Steve and Bucky once they met him, the sky still dark and the cold still sinking into their bones. He waved a flashdrive in the air. “It took a while to decrypt all the encoded information, but now we’re mostly certain of what it all means.  
“What is it, sir?” Steve asked.  
“Information stolen from Hydra while you two waited outside,” Fury replied. “It gives us leads on Hydra locations.”  
“Where are they?” Bucky asked.  
“We’ve got three primary locations right now,” Fury replied. “I’ll let you know as I assign you to them. But I’m adding more people onto this since we have such solid information now and I think we can really wipe out at least significant portion of Hydra.” Bucky frowned.  
“I don’t want to wipe out a significant portion,” he said. “I want to take it all.”  
“If it were that easy, Barnes,” Fury said. “They’d already be gone. But I’d think that you of all people would have figured out by now that they can be a bit difficult.” Bucky ground his teeth and glared at the ground. Fury looked to Steve and Bucky and back again. “This is our plan,” he said. “Like it or not.  
“So where are we going?” Steve asked.  
“Well, that depends,” Fury replied, turning to Bucky once more. “What all do you remember from Russia?” Bucky shook his head.  
“They’ve got something in Russia, of course they do. I knew that bastard was lying to me,” he growled.  
“We can probably assume that any Hydra agent you grilled was lying to you,” Fury responded. “But how much do you know about Hydra’s places in Russia?”  
“Very little,” Bucky admitted. “Nothing necessarily cohesive. But I could try. And I am fluent in Russian. I’d be willing to go, Fury.” In fact, he thought, he’d probably be more willing to go. He had an opportunity to face his monsters head-on and although the concept did scare him, more than he would like to admit, he knew he couldn’t back down or he would always regret it. And besides, he couldn’t help but feel confident if Steve was with him. Things had gone wrong before, but he knew nothing was ever bound to go right and if he was going to go down any way, it had better be with Hydra in his strangling grasp and, ideally, with Steve nearby.  
“I’ll think about it,” Fury said and Bucky pushed aside the way he felt like insisting.   
The thing is, all Bucky was beginning to be able to feel was the frustration, buzzing in his bloodstream and backing up his patience. Not that he’d ever been one with much patience to begin with, but even he was a little surprised at his own short fuse. Between the realization of his repression and the strains on his relationships with his best and only friends and the fact that his replacement arm made him feel weaker and more fragile than he’d felt in years, Bucky was bursting with pent up anger and hate. Like the frustration that had drove him to sling fists at Steve earlier, the anger lit a fire inside him that he hadn’t seen in years. At first, he had embraced it, but now, he resented it. It was a fire, after all, and like hate tends to do, Bucky could feel it burning away at anything good inside of him.  
And he felt even more so now that it was all his fault, a feeling which drove the nails of his anger deeper inside of him. He’d always had the sinking feeling, as he was bound to have, that his torment was not random. In a world of order, where things made sense, he must have done something, been something so terribly wrong and his 70 years of abuse at Hydra had been penance for it. But he hadn’t known himself, he couldn’t remember what he must have done to deserve it all. Now, though, he knew it was all him. There was no mind-wiping, brainwashing machine keeping him from remembering; now it was just Bucky and his towering dam, holding back the floods and keeping him at a steady flat-line of cowardly misery. It was his fault and everything was so, so complicated.  
He was also beginning to feel as though he was on some sort of timer. His life had become an emotional rollercoaster. He didn’t know if he’d wake up in the morning to push his face back into his pillow and feel hollow and dead all day or if he would wake up grinding his teeth as fire seared his insides and he bruised his knuckles on the walls of his apartment. The only thing he knew for sure was that waking up happy was never an option.  
Steve and Bucky finished up with Fury and walked back out to the car together quietly.  
“Russia could be really dangerous,” Steve mentioned.  
“Don’t care,” Bucky replied. Steve rubbed his face.  
“Are you going to do this every time some really dangerous opportunity comes up?” He asked, opening his car door and beginning to sit down. “Cause I can’t watch you get wiped again.” Bucky crossed the car to the opposite side and opened the door, glaring.  
“Well it’s your lucky day,” he said as he sat down. “Because I’m not getting wiped again. And you have no room to talk about danger, Steve, you’ve done worse.”  
“I have absolutely not done worse,” Steve replied hotly. “We can have this conversation a hundred times and I’ll still tell you that you have a lot to lose and putting your neck on the chopping block isn’t going to make Hydra put down the knife.”  
“And I’ll tell you that I’m not expecting Hydra to put down the knife,” Bucky said. “I’m expecting to pry it from their cold, dead hands. I’m not going down without a fight.” Steve sighed.  
“So Russia it is then?” He said.  
“Russia it is,” Bucky replied determinedly.   
And neither of them noticed as in the front, the driver injected something into the heaters and put a gas mask over himself as he drove.


	86. Capture

The funny thing was, Bucky didn’t remember falling asleep. As he woke up, his head a pounding, blurry mess, he tried to think what the last thing that had happened was. He was in a car, with Steve. They were talking about Russia and then, suddenly… He was here. As Bucky slowly but surely gained more and more of his consciousness, he realized several things. One was that he was somewhere dark, and fiercely cold. Another was that he couldn’t move his arms and legs-he was being restrained, back down on some sort of table. Oh no, Bucky thought. That wasn’t a good sign. That was in fact, a very bad sign.   
And the way he sat in the dark, unable to move and unsure of what torment was to follow was so familiar that he could feel the dam pushing inside his mind. Things were leaking through and Bucky remembered torture. He remembered isolation.  
No no no no no no no not again I can’t do this again  
Bucky turned his head and saw Steve in a similar position lying close to him in the darkness. His eyes were closed. Bucky didn’t know what to do and he was trying not to panic out of fear and confusion. He listened to the darkness hard and heard nothing. There was no one around. Still, not wanting to bring anyone near, because it was most certainly Hydra, it was always Hydra, Bucky whispered loudly to Steve.  
Steve stirred in the slightest and Bucky watched his eyes open slowly and take in his situation.  
“Steve,” Bucky hissed frantically and Steve turned to look at Bucky. His expression was unreadable through the darkness. He groaned loudly. “Shh,” Bucky said quickly.   
“What happened?” Steve whispered back. His voice sounded strained, he was mumbling and not completely awake.  
“I have no idea,” Bucky said. Steve stared at him for a moment, as if still processing the situation.  
“Are you okay?” He said suddenly as though he had forgotten to ask. “Your memory...” Bucky nodded as best he could with the back of his skull pressed against the metal table.  
“I’m fine,” he said. “You don’t sound so good though, are you alright?”  
“My head is killing me,” Steve replied. Bucky took a deep breath and turned his head forward, staring at the ceiling and trying not to panic. Hydra had him, they had the both of them and Bucky had no idea what to do. Steve was hurt or else still out of it and as much as Bucky began to strain, he couldn’t break the bonds around his arms and legs.  
“We need to get out of here,” he said, swallowing.  
“Uuuuugggh,” Steve groaned and Bucky fought to force back his fear. What if this was it? What if he couldn’t fight back in the end? What if they had him now, their attack a total surprise, and he had only moments to wait until they came in and took everything from him that he had managed to gain? His 70 year fate worse than death. Bucky looked over at Steve, who was closing his eyes again and muttering.  
“Steve, I’m so sorry,” Bucky said.  
“‘Bout what, Buck?” Steve mumbled.  
“This is my fault,” Bucky replied. “I’m gonna… I’ll get us out of here, okay?”  
“Okay,” Steve said and looking at him now, Bucky realized that at least, Steve was right about one thing.  
I have nothing, Bucky remembered screaming and the answer he heard again in his head hit him this time harder than it had before because suddenly, Bucky knew it was true.  
You have me.  
Bucky felt sick as he realized all that he had been taking for granted in his misery. He would never have nothing, not completely, not with Steve. And oh, he had so much, so much to lose.  
Steve, on the table next to Bucky, was beginning to slip under the tranquilizers again. Bucky wondered if they gave them both the same thing and he wondered just how strong it had been. All Bucky knew was that he had to keep Steve awake. Steve had to be okay.  
“Steve, Steve, hey!” Bucky said, taking his chances with the volume. Steve’s eyelids fluttered and Bucky began to push against the bonds frantically now. There was so much to lose. Steve couldn’t be hurt because of him, Bucky wouldn’t be able to live with that. “Hey, wake up, okay, stay with me.”  
“Mmm,” Steve hummed, mumbling. Bucky shimmied up under the braces, one leg coming free. He celebrated silently and pulled his other leg out, now that the bands there were so loose. Only his arms and chest to go now.  
“Talk to me, okay?” Bucky said to Steve. “Stay awake, tell me things.”  
“What do you wanna… Whado you wanna hear?” Steve said.  
“Uh…,” Bucky said, trying to think quickly. He still couldn’t hear anyone approaching, which was a blessing. “Uh, tell me about… When we were kids? I still don’t remember hardly any of that.” Steve began talking, staring at the ceiling, and most of what he said wasn’t entirely cohesive, but he was awake and he was going to be okay and Bucky took a deep breath and began to concentrate on trying to pull his right arm free.   
“We, uh, we got a place together once both of our parents were dead. I was in school and you were working and you had a girlfriend.”  
There was some sort of clasp where the leather braces attached and Bucky pulled at it with his entire arm, the leather biting into his skin and he felt wetness and a sting. But then, the clasp was beginning to give way and Bucky was breathing heavily with the strain of it until he heard a tearing and the whole thing came undone.   
“She was really nice, she liked science. I mostly just drew a lot. That was all I really knew how to do.”  
Pulling his arm away, Bucky began to tear at the clasps around his left arm and chest now, but he was shaking and it took him a minute to undo both of them.   
“You were the best friend a guy could have. I’m so sorry, so sorry, you didn’t deserve anything you got, Buck, I couldn’t help you… Couldn’t… Help you…”  
Steve was still talking, his mutters sprinkled with a few recognizable words, like Buck and Brooklyn and art and always apologies. Bucky slung his legs off the table and began to try to stand, but he was shaking and his legs were weak and he collapsed. It’s okay, it’s okay, he told himself as he dragged himself to his feet.  
“You okay?” Steve said.  
“Don’t worry about me,” Bucky said. This was, after all, what Steve would do if their positions were switched. Steve would be tough. Bucky ground his teeth and steeled his resolve and forced himself to stand steady. Then, he turned to Steve and began to undo his straps. “Think you can walk?” He asked, even though he was sure Steve probably couldn’t, but he nodded anyway.   
Bucky helped Steve sit up, slinging Steve’s arm around his shoulder and hoisting him up. He helped him slide off the table and onto the ground and when Steve went down, Bucky nearly did, too. But with their combined strength, Bucky was able to drag Steve back up.  
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Bucky was saying. He honestly wasn’t sure what he was doing, or how he was doing it. It was as though he knew he couldn’t panic, not yet, not when he had to take care of Steve. He felt distinctly together for a while, like he hadn’t ever been broken, but he wasn’t happy. It wasn’t a moment to celebrate because he probably didn’t have much time before the reality of himself crashed back down on him and he needed to get Steve safe before that happened, before he became wreckage once more.  
But for a while, he had some sort of borrowed strength in the knowledge that he had so much to lose and he was going to use it to get out.  
The door was locked, of course, and Bucky sat Steve down so he could try to kick it open, but before he could, the lock turned and the door opened. Bucky’s mouth went dry and he looked down to Steve, who was trying to stand. What was he going to do??   
No no no no no no, a rhythm, a pounding of no’s echoing in his head.  
He felt Steve grab his prosthetic shoulder and although it sent a warning shock through him, he simply grit his teeth and tried to forget it. He raised his fists and he could feel now the confidence that was he suddenly aware of crumbling. The dam pushed in on him, heavy and full and he shook off the memories of torment that caved in on him. If only he had a gun.  
This is it, Bucky thought. This is the end of everything we’ve built.


	87. Shot

“James, it’s okay, I’m here, it’s just me,” Natasha said and Bucky stared as she stepped into the room. He took her in, red hair, black suit, and there was a sharp pain in his head as he realized that the Black Widow did look familiar to him. “James?”  
“Natalia,” Bucky breathed, allowing himself for a second to feel relief. “Steve isn’t okay-take him.” Bucky realized, standing in the darkness, that he didn’t feel as though he ought to be saved. Part of him, pieces of the shards that made him up, told him that he belonged there, tied to tables and being unmade. Maybe at one point, he could have been saved, but now, even if they took him from the place, he would never be okay again. He could never truly be saved and he was so far gone that this was the only place he should be and he probably deserved it.   
When Natasha took Steve and left, maybe Bucky should stay and give himself up because hurting people and being hurt himself was the only thing he could really do anyway and it was what he deserved, what with being broken and all.  
Of course, it was only a passing notion, a half-unserious one, and just a consideration of the things that he could do, like when one is standing on a cliff and considers taking a step, even though they had never been suicidal a day in their life. However, even though Bucky knew rationally that this was not really something he wanted or thought, it scared him so bad that he gasped out loud and his entire body grew tense.  
“Let’s get out of here,” he said hastily. “Natasha, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.” Natasha paused and looked at him for a split second, her lips parting, concerned, and then Steve began to collapse again behind him, his eyes rolling up in his head. Bucky whirled around and caught him, his left arm pulling and shooting pain inside him. Natasha leapt forward and caught Steve’s other side and together, they slipped their arms under his and began to haul him out.   
And it hurt then, too, because as Bucky helped Steve out, painful flashes attacked his mind of dragging him out of alleys, seeing black eyes and blood, throwing punches. And although he received nothing truly solid, just ideas and flashes and feelings, the pain was escalating and the flashes were coming faster and more violent until Bucky was breathing hard and using his free hand to hold his head, his eyes wide in fear despite that through the flashes in his head, he barely saw anything real in front of him.  
In his head, Bucky drew up his dam and pressed his back against it and screamed at the rush of memories rushing wild like a waterfall, uncontainable.  
Natasha hadn’t noticed yet that Bucky was beginning to panic, that he was beginning to lose his grip. He looked over at her and tried to focus on her, threw up his dam and hid.  
“Where are we headed?” Bucky asked, trying to ground himself, trying to bring himself back to the present. “Do you have anyone else with you?” Natasha shook her head.  
“I called for Clint a few minutes ago,” she said. “He’ll be here.”  
“Did Fury send you?” Bucky asked. “Where’s your team?” Natasha looked down and her hair fell in her face so he couldn’t see her eyes.  
“I came alone,” she said. “Fury probably hasn’t even gotten my message yet.” Bucky swallowed and considered this information as the memories subsided. “You’d only been gone a few hours, but I couldn’t just wait around, and I found the car that took you and I’ve been chasing you down since.” They entered the hall now, Steve beginning to try to move his feet, and Natasha led them down to the right, one hand holding a gun in front of them. Bucky watched her, thinking.  
“How long have we been gone?” He asked and she looked over to him.  
“A day, maybe,” she said. “Did they-”  
“No,” Bucky interrupted her, turning forward. He found he didn’t quite want her to say it. “No, they haven’t done anything yet. We’re lucky.” In his head, he screamed. He should have known, he should have guessed. Of course the snipers hadn’t been the last wave of attack. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have put Steve in danger?  
“I found bodies by our apartment building,” Natasha added.  
“Snipers,” Bucky replied. “We were attacked before we left.” He made a face now as they continued down twisting halls as fast as they could. “I’m definitely getting kicked out now.” Natasha didn’t respond, and then they met the resistance Bucky had been waiting for.   
At the next turn, a wall of Hydra agents waited, guns up. Natasha and Bucky stopped and Steve frantically tried to stand straighter between them.  
“Halt!” A voice came from the wall. “Or we’ll shoot!”  
“What’s the plan?” Bucky hissed towards Natasha, but Natasha already had her gun up. In seconds, she had taken down at least three of the men, but then the air became a hailstorm of bullets and Bucky barely reacted fast enough to throw himself in front of Steve as they whizzed through the air. “Nat!!” Bucky cried, but Natasha was already moving. She was a blur, dodging bullets and fists as fast as she was throwing them back. Men rushed at Bucky, but the Winter Soldier was faster and he had an intimate knowledge in snapping necks and cracking heads. But as fast as Bucky could stop them, the faster they came and he couldn’t disarm a speeding bullet and he was so overwhelmed that he didn’t notice as at least three hit Steve behind him until Steve yelled and Bucky whirled around and the blood began to pool.  
The world went in slow motion for the Winter Soldier at that moment. Steve collapsed and the Winter Soldier barely caught him as he hit the floor, catching his head and gripping his shoulders. He was screaming at Steve and Steve was fading fast. Blood was everywhere, but more bullets were flying and the Winter Soldier saw red. He became a being of fierce, concentrated hatred in that moment, everything in him screaming for brutal retaliation as he stood, leaving Steve gasping on the ground.  
The Winter Soldier didn’t have a weapon, but he found he didn’t need one yet. The men around him froze and he heard one of them curse aloud in fear. He snatched up a gun from the floor and bullets found skulls. When he ran out of bullets, he used his fists. When his fist bled, he used his knees. He didn’t know how many men he killed in that hallway, but when he came back to himself, every one of them was dead and Natasha was staring. Bucky didn’t even have time to feel like a monster because Steve was still bleeding out on the floor and suddenly noise and time were registering again and as his hate drained back, his panic bled through and he grabbed Steve and hauled him up.  
I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you!!  
Natasha!! Help me!!  
I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you, LOOK AT ME stay FOCUSED ON ME I cannot lose you!!  
Steve gripped Bucky, slumped over him, and Bucky grabbed him and tried to walk, tried to run.  
“He’s dying!” Bucky screamed at Natasha. This couldn’t be happening. The world wasn’t making sense. He was supposed to die, not Steve! He was supposed to be the one hurt here!!  
In a world of order, Steve would walk out of this alive. In a world that made sense, Steve would be happy and live an even longer life than he already had.  
Bucky screamed in Steve’s face, but Steve couldn’t seem to be able to keep his eyes open.  
“Clint, we need that helicopter ASAP,” Natasha was saying. Bucky grabbed the phone from her.  
“Bring medical help! Get a doctor! Get here, damn you!!” He yelled.  
“James, he’s trying!” Natasha said.  
“That’s not good enough!” Bucky cried in response.  
They were nearly at the exit. Bucky could see daylight. He tried to walk faster, but Steve yelled in pain and Bucky had to stop for a minute.  
“You’ll be okay, you’ll be fine,” he was saying, trying to sound calming even though his voice was shaking. Natasha next to them was talking to Steve, wiping her tears away, touching his face.  
Clint was there when they broke out into the sunlight and Bucky had to blink spots away from his vision. On the helicopter, Steve was patched up, attached to machines, surrounded by buzzing doctors, and Bucky was pushed away from him and held back by guards, but he threw them aside and stood next to where Steve was lying and sobbed.  
“James,” Natasha was touching his shoulder and he wanted to scream, but her face was streaked with tears, so he stood up and hugged her hard, shaking and weeping into her hair. He couldn’t even be happy that he was out and he was safe because Steve was on the brink of death. He’d never dreamed that something could be worse than being strapped to a table in a Hydra base, but there he was and there was Steve, rapidly bleeding out.  
“What are we going to do, what are we going to do,” Bucky was saying and Natasha squeezed him and shook her head.  
“I don’t know!” She cried.  
“He could die!” Bucky said.  
“He is dying!” Natasha replied and Bucky felt everything fall.  
I can’t lose you I can’t lose you i cant lose you


	88. Burning

Steve spent a few days in the hospital before they sent him home. He had two major bullet wounds in his chest and one less critical one in his side. He had a lot of pain medication and a lot of ice and a lot of gauze and all he could think as he lay first in his hospital bed and then in his bed at home was thank heavens it wasn’t Bucky.  
Bucky was there when Steve woke up and he was there when Steve went home and he took care of him silently. Natasha was there sometimes too and she’d smirk at him and tell him that he would be okay and he’d try to make a smart remark back, but sometimes, the pain medication dulled him and he would just nod.  
And Bucky would be in the corner, silent and staring off again, waiting for something that needed doing, like helping Steve eat or stand up out of bed. He had taken to not saying much and Steve didn’t know why, so when Natasha left, Steve asked him.  
“You’re so quiet lately,” Steve said. “You know, I actually have been shot before. I’m going to live.” Bucky, in a chair across the room, leaned over his knees and looked at the ground.  
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, too,” he said quietly. Steve looked at him.  
“This wasn’t your fault,” he said. Bucky looked up at him and took a deep breath before looking back down and rubbing his eyes.  
“I guess I’m quiet because I don’t have a lot to say,” Bucky said finally. “To be honest, there’s not a lot of me left. You’re the only thing I have anymore.” Steve looked at him and took this in.  
“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve said and Bucky tried to smile, tried to shrug. His eyes looked empty.  
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “‘Cause it wasn’t your fault.” Then, he added in a voice so quiet he might have thought Steve hadn’t heard, “I just wish I could be anyone else.” Steve watched him wearily push his hair back from his face, then stop and put his whole face in his hands. Steve closed his eyes. Bucky was always so grief-stricken. He wasn’t sure how to make him happy. He didn’t know how to fix things for Bucky, not when everything always went so disastrously wrong.  
A few hours later, Bucky spoke again.  
“How are you feeling?” He asked, his voice breaking the silence. Steve shifted uncomfortably.  
“I told you I’m gonna live,” he said. Bucky looked up and his eyes were intense.  
“I said how are you feeling,” he repeated himself and Steve stared at him and wasn’t sure how to respond until the words began to tumble out of him.  
“I just can’t tell you,” he said. “I can’t tell you, I have to be strong for you.”  
“Well stop it,” Bucky replied and then he swallowed and cocked his head and spoke again. “Remember when I called you in the middle of the night and you sat up and listened to me?” Steve nodded. “Let me return the favor. I’ve seen you… I’ve seen you suffer, Steve. How can I be your friend if you don’t, if we don’t… Talk?”  
“What do you want me to talk about?” Steve asked and Bucky stared at him. Steve could see in Bucky when he felt the most inhuman. There was a deadness in his eyes that was most certainly there now. Steve only wanted to help.  
“Tell me why you apologize,” Bucky said. “You can’t apologize for something that’s not your fault.” Steve sighed and looked at the ceiling.  
“But no,” he said. “No, it is. It all is. It always is.”  
“How,” Bucky said and Steve already felt exhausted, trying to explain himself. He found he didn’t like talking about it. Pain he’d hidden so long only hurt worse exposed.  
“I’m a burden to you,” Steve said and now, he realized why sometimes Bucky couldn’t seem to be able to get the words out of his mouth. It was painful, like a ripping. He hated it. “I’ve always been a burden to you.” He looked over at Bucky and realized that his own eyes were brimming with tears. “Please don’t make me talk about this,” he begged. Bucky seemed to melt a little at this, the tension smoothing out of his shoulders and face as the humanness took precedence in his eyes. He seemed sympathetic. He stood and took his chair and dragged it next to Steve’s bed.  
“I know it hurts,” he said quietly. “But you aren’t a burden.”  
“You don’t want to hear what I have to say,” Steve said.  
“If I didn’t want to hear, I wouldn’t have asked,” Bucky said softly. All Steve could hear in his mind was how he was wasting Bucky’s time. He was a burden. He had no right to feel these things. Why couldn’t he be stronger? “Talk to me, Steve,” Bucky said.  
“It’s nothing,” Steve said.  
“Shut up, Rogers,” Bucky shot back. “And tell me the truth.”  
“That is the truth,” Steve said. “I’m fine.”  
“You’re… You’re…,” Bucky said and Steve could see him thinking, trying to come up with a way to describe it. Steve knew how to describe it. He was being eaten away on the inside. Every day he grew steadily more miserable. He knew how Bucky felt when he said he was losing himself.   
Except he didn’t, he absolutely did not, and Bucky had a life so much worse than his and he had no right, no right to feel this way!! He did not have a right to this pain!!  
“I’m dying!” Steve cried aloud and it felt like some part of him was being ripped off as he spoke the words. It hurt in a way that Steve didn’t know things could hurt. It was the pain of all the times he’d suffocated himself in silence bound up on each other and stabbing him now. It was the way his pride cringed. It was the way he could see pity and hurt and unrecognizable things in Bucky’s eyes. “I’m being burned away! I don’t know what to do!”  
“What’s burning you?” Bucky asked and his eyebrows went up in just a way that brought memories back from their childhood, that look Bucky got when he was trying to help Steve. Steve knew that face well and he felt awful as he watched it, he felt guilty. How could he share this burden with Bucky? How could he put this on his friend?  
“I don’t know, everything? Everything that’s my fault,” Steve said.  
“Like what,” Bucky asked.  
“You,” Steve said. “All the things I should have been doing when I was in ice.” Steve threw his hands up. “Everything. And I don’t know how to make up for it and it’s eating me alive, Buck. I hate being alive anymore. And then that’s not even the end of it, because-” and here, Steve swallowed back emotions, tears choking him. Oh, he hated it, he hated it violently. He wanted to hit something. He hadn’t felt dead-end frustration like this in years. “Because I hate myself for feeling bad. I make myself feel bad and then I hate myself for it. Does that make sense? Is that normal?” Bucky, who had been leaning forward with that expression, listening patiently, closed his eyes and shook his head.  
“No, that’s not normal,” Bucky said quietly. Steve stared at him and swallowed.  
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, even though he knew that was exactly what was eating him. The sorriness. The guilt like acid, the guilt like fire, the guilt like a weight, like everything was his fault because he was supposed to fix things and all he did was watch them fall apart.   
“Please don’t be,” Bucky replied. “Please.” Then, “Do you feel like this all of the time?” Steve nodded and Bucky looked away and swallowed, nodding slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Well, first things first, you aren’t a burden. You’re not a burden, Steve, you carry burdens and there’s a difference.”  
“I don’t have a right to this pain,” Steve said and Bucky looked at him.  
“You don’t have to justify what you’re feeling,” he said back quietly. “You don’t have to ‘deserve’ it.”  
“I should be happy,” Steve said. “I have every reason to be happy.”  
“That doesn’t mean you will be,” Bucky replied. “And that’s okay, alright? If you’re unhappy, no amount of ‘should be happy’s will change that. You’re allowed to feel pain.” Steve looked forward and closed his eyes.  
“Okay,” he said quietly.  
“You gotta let me help you with those burdens,” Bucky added. “That’s what friends are for.”  
“But you deal with so much already,” Steve protested and Bucky scoffed.  
“I want to know what you’re feeling,” Bucky said. “I care, okay? So you need to tell me. If you tell me, maybe that’ll stop the burning. Okay?”  
The idea that the burning of acidic guilt inside of him could stop practically baffled Steve. He didn’t know how to not feel guilt. He didn’t know how to not feel unworthy.  
“I don’t know how to be happy,” Steve said quietly and Bucky wet his lips and rubbed wetness away from his eyes.  
“Man, neither do I,” he said. “But maybe we can figure it out together.”


	89. ___

The next time James and Natalia sparred together, everything escalated like a rocket shot off. There was a spark in Natalia’s eyes and her hands were all over him with playful purpose like she wouldn’t have before, but she remained too quick for him to grab. He grinned at her. She was learning.  
But he was fast too, and when she danced around him and grabbed his butt, he laughed out loud and whirled around, snatching her up by the wrists, pulling her close to him roughly. She smirked at him and slipped her hands out of his, then reached up and grabbed the straps around his shoulders, jerking him down to her and pressing her mouth to his.   
“You’re good at this,” James said into her mouth as they kissed and she wrapped her arms around his waist tightly.  
“What, making out wasn’t part of the Winter Soldier’s training? I never would have guessed,” Natalia muttered playfully. James grinned and took her shoulders and pushed her back fast into the wall, following her, just enough to jar her but not enough to hurt her, and she laughed out loud again. They were up against each other, hands and mouths everywhere, talking softly and laughing like teenagers.  
“When else can I see you?” Natalia asked breathlessly through each kiss he gave her. Her hands were in his hair and she moved them down to cup his face. He frowned.  
“Get me away from my handlers and I’m all yours,” he said.  
“There’s no way they watch you all the time,” Natalia replied, kissing him again.  
“I can’t even get a damn shower to myself, Nat,” he admitted begrudgingly and she stopped kissing him, stunned and concerned, to stare into his eyes. Her face was inches from his.  
“You’re kidding,” she said and he shook his head.  
“They’re only gone now to give you some space,” he told her. Natalia studied his face.  
“That’s… Awful,” she said. “Why do they do that?” James really didn’t know.  
“I’m dangerous,” he said. “I’m… I’m volatile?”  
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.  
“Maybe…,” James said, frowning. It hurt to think. “Maybe I’ve tried to escape before,” he said and it really hit him now, more than ever before, more even than when he studied the bars of his cell or read his personal file, that he was a captive. He was a prisoner. “I wouldn’t remember.” He felt Natalia wrap her arms around him tightly, squeezing him, her head on his metal shoulder, and he hugged her back gently, lost in his thoughts. That was it, that was why he was under near-constant watch. He was a prisoner.  
“Hey, Natalia,” James said quietly as they hugged.  
“Mhmm,” she replied and squeezed him again. He rested his chin on her head and sighed.  
“Thank you,” he whispered and she tilted her head up and kissed him on the face gently.  
“Of course, James,” she whispered back.


	90. Move

The problem was, of course, that Bucky knew what he was. That was what he had now, Steve and that knowledge. It made him enraged, in a muted sort of way where nothing really seemed real, in a fire sort of way where everything else burned away, but his stomach didn’t flip anymore when he thought about it and he thought maybe that was a bad sign, maybe he was just too inhuman anymore.  
But Bucky knew what he was, at the very core, when you stripped away everything else. All other aspects of him were extraneous, like a lie. He was a killer. He was a monster. And that was really all there was to it.  
So Bucky sat in Steve’s room, leaning over his knees and staring at the ground in a brooding silence, considering how everything else he was seemed only a flimsy cover and it all fell away so easily, so disturbingly easily and left him only with himself the Winter Soldier and the way necks snapped under his hands.  
Sometimes, Bucky wondered if maybe what got to him wasn’t the knowledge that he couldn’t live with himself. Maybe what really destroyed him was the knowledge that he could.  
As Bucky tried to convince Steve that he wasn’t a burden, he wondered about the things eating Steve away inside and thought maybe it might be his own poisonous doing. Steve had never seemed so crushed. There was something going out in his eyes-Bucky was watching it and he only thought that maybe, it was his presence doing the crushing. Maybe Steve wouldn’t blame himself if Bucky wasn’t there to make him feel as though he had to. So after they finished talking and Bucky gave Steve something for his pain and watched him fall asleep, he stood and left his apartment and returned to his own for at least an hour or two. He just couldn’t stand to look at Steve and think those things anymore.  
His own apartment was quiet and dark, just as he had left it a few days ago to meet Steve outside in the middle of the night. He only returned in spare hours like this, to take care of himself or just to be alone before he returned to Steve’s place to collapse on his couch and he knew this was exactly what Steve had done for him once and he allowed himself to feel a little pride in himself through the dank of his own personal self-hatred because if Steve would do it, then surely it was a step in the right direction. And it wasn’t just that, either. Bucky wanted to make it up to Steve. They wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for Bucky and the way that he was hunted. Steve was even more of a target now because of him and Bucky wanted to take care of him, felt this overwhelming need to help him, and he felt crushed when he failed. He had to make Steve safe.  
He showered and shaved himself quickly, ready to return to Steve’s, until as he approached his door, there was a knock.  
“Hello? James, are you home?” Natasha called and Bucky stopped. He didn’t want to open the door, he didn’t want to look into her face, so desperate, or hear her voice, so regretful. He loved her too much. But she had knocked on a day when he could taste the red-hot fire rage climbing up his throat and eating at him and he had to open the door, had to say hello, and then had to remind himself to be gentle with her, in everything from his guarded facial expressions to the softness of his voice. Bucky knew Natasha wasn’t fragile and that she was stronger than himself in every way, but when she made herself so vulnerable to him, all Bucky wanted to do was be careful with her. Because Bucky knew vulnerability. He understood deeply what it was to be cut open and to be raw unwillingly because he was raw and he suffered in a way that everyone knew he was suffering and Natasha had been gentle with him. He loved her too much. He wanted to return the favor. And while the fire and frustration itched to leap out of his mouth, he swallowed it back. He wouldn’t lash out at Natasha like he had lashed out at Steve days earlier. Steve still had the shadows of bruises on his face. Sure, he had anger and sure, he was angry about Natalia. But he wouldn’t, couldn't be angry at her.  
“Natalia,” Bucky said by way of greeting as he opened the door. He watched her eyes carefully, to see which name she would rather he call her, but she was looking at the ground and he didn’t get to see. He himself did like to be called James, however. At first, he had been unsure of it because all he had heard was ‘Bucky’, but his first name out of Natasha’s mouth was special. It sounded personal, like she was proclaiming their closeness with a single name that only she could use. Bucky liked to be James. It meant that maybe, there was still some hope for that different kind of happy he had told Natasha about.  
“James,” she said his name, looking up at his face. “I’m a liar.”  
“‘Tis the life of a spy,” Bucky repeated her own words back to her.  
“I’m not used to telling someone everything,” she continued.  
“What good is a best friend you keep secrets from?” He asked. She looked at him, her eyes conflicted.  
“This is new for me,” she said finally.  
“That’s okay,” Bucky replied. “That’s okay, you can learn.”  
“How do you do it?” Natasha asked and Bucky held his door open wider and decided that if Natasha wanted to talk, he could spare time to talk.  
“Would you like to come in?” He asked and ushered her inside. He missed the days when she would stroll in by herself, or purposefully pick his lock just to charm him or surprise him. He missed her spark. “And I don’t do anything. If I’m open with you, it’s because I don’t… I don’t know any other way to be, Nat. I don’t think I have enough of an identity to hide one.” Natasha seemed to consider this as he closed the door and followed her to the front room, standing in front of the couch they had once spent a ridiculously long night on because they had both been too exhausted to move to the bed. Bucky remembered distinctly his arm around her shoulder and the smell of her hair and decided consciously to cling to that memory. That would be one that he would refuse to allow to wash away in the tide of his fear to remember.  
And if Bucky had ever truly wanted to push her away or cut her out or somehow diminish her influence in his life, he was failing fast and he wasn’t disappointed.  
“How’s Steve?” Natasha asked and Bucky shrugged.  
“He’s getting better. He’ll be okay,” he replied. Then, he looked at her. “Thank you for coming after us.” Natasha smiled gently at him and sighed.  
“I was so scared,” she admittedly quietly. “Steve had told me you were meeting with Fury, but it took you two so long to get back and I couldn’t just sit in my room and sweat.” She folded her arms tightly and laughed. “You’re my best friends,” she added quietly. “You and Steve and Clint. I don’t have a lot of friends like you.”  
“Same here,” Bucky replied, leaning up against the wall and shoving his hands in his pockets, careful with the fragile left one.  
“We’re so lucky they didn’t have time to do anything,” Natasha said quickly, as though desperate to move on, and Bucky looked down and nodded.  
“I almost can’t believe our luck,” he replied. “We’re never lucky.”  
“Well,” Natasha said with a lighthearted smile. “We didn’t get off scot-free. Steve got the brunt of it this time.” Bucky swallowed and nodded again.  
“It’s not fair,” he said.  
“You’re over there all the time now,” Natasha said, dropping her hands and beginning to move closer to him. He looked up at her. “I thought I’d never catch you at home again.” Bucky shrugged a second time.  
“I have to help him,” he said. “You know, you can visit him too and meet me there, you don’t have to wait until I get back here.”  
“I know,” she replied. “But you’re so preoccupied when you’re with him. I look at you and I can’t even get your attention, it’s like you’re worlds away.”   
“I have a lot on my mind,” he said.   
“Then maybe you should stop and take it easy for a while,” Natasha said quietly. She was very close to him now and he realized he was leaning forward into her.  
“You know I can’t do that,” Bucky replied and Natasha looked down and wet her lips, nodding slowly. “I miss you, Natalia,” Bucky added after a while.  
“But can you forgive me is the question,” she said, her voice a mutter, shifting her feet almost shamefully. “Know that I am so sorry, James, please know.” She didn’t meet his eyes, but he stared ahead at her anyway.  
“I think saving me from a Hydra base more than makes up for it,” he said and she looked up at him. She looked so hopeful that Bucky’s heart almost broke.  
“I understand why you were mad,” she said.  
“I understand why you lied,” he said back. “But I do love you and I do forgive you.” Natasha smiled widely at him, letting out a breath of relief, and he wrapped her in a hug, only realizing now how wonderful it was to be able to hug her with two arms, and just because he could, he took her by the waist and swung her around. She gripped him tight and kissed his mouth when he set her back down, laughing and smiling. He pressed her close to him and kissed her back.  
“You said things could never go back to normal,” Natasha said as he kissed her neck.  
“Nope,” he said, halfway teasing. “Not normal. Everything’s different now.” Natasha smirked and ran her hands through his hair.  
“How?”  
“Well, for starters, you’re gonna have to move in with me now,” he said, moving up again to kiss her mouth and although his tone was light-hearted and flirty, he meant every word. “That’ll be a very different kind of happy, I think.” Natasha pulled back from him for a moment and stared at him, stunned.  
“What?” she said.  
“It won’t be that difficult,” Bucky said with a nonchalant shrug, looking at her eyes and praying that she said yes. He couldn’t tell yet what she was thinking. “After all, you’re just next door. But we’ll have to make room in my closet and I’ll throw some things out if you need me to. And I don’t have a lot of things, so you can just put all of your stuff anywhere. There’s lots of empty wall space to put your bookshelves. Then we’ll have to deal with that landlord and the contract on your other place.” Natasha stared at him, her eyes wide.  
“Really.” she said. “Really??” Bucky grinned at her.  
“You want to?” He said. “I think it’d be fun. You practically live here anyways.” Natasha laughed.  
“I would love to, James,” she said and kissed him again fiercely. But as she pushed him up against the wall and slid her hands up and down his chest, something occurred to him to say and he stopped her quickly, grabbing her hands and looking into her face.  
“But you have to promise never to lie to me again,” Bucky said seriously. “No secrets, no hiding things-nothing.”  
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Natasha said.  
“Natalia, I mean it,” Bucky replied. “Please, I want to trust you.”  
“I want you to trust me, James,” Natasha replied. “You’ll know everything. You deserve to know, I realize that.”  
“You promise?” Bucky insisted and Natasha stopped for a second, looking down, thinking. She looked back up a moment later and spoke.  
“You promise you’ll take me out to dinner?” She said. Bucky almosted smiled.  
“When this is all over?” He added for her, since he knew what she was going to say.  
“To the most expensive restaurant in DC and kiss me all night?” She finished and Bucky tried to smile at her again, but he couldn’t.  
“You don’t know what you’re asking me to promise,” he said.  
“Excuse you, James Barnes, I know exactly what I’m asking you to promise,” Natasha replied without hesitation. “Promise me you’ll live and be happy. Is that too much to ask?”  
“I don’t want to fail you,” Bucky replied quietly and Natasha kissed the side of his mouth gently.  
“I’m here to help you,” she said. “You aren’t alone, you don’t have to do this by yourself. I’ll promise you as much as you’ll promise me that you’ll make it out of this okay. Promise?” Bucky looked down and swallowed, trying to have the courage.  
“I promise,” he said.  
“And I promise you,” she replied back. “I promise you I’ll never violate your trust again and that you and me will walk out of this with smiles on our faces. I swear.”  
Bucky was barely able to say ‘thank you’ before Natasha attacked him with more kisses and he was content to return to moving in tune with her between whispers and laughter and touching. Natasha began to undo the buttons going down his shirt front and he pushed her towards his bedroom until his shirt was on the floor and she was dragging him down with her onto his bed.  
“You remember what you said about taking it easy for a while?” Bucky said as he helped her pull off her t-shirt.  
“Yeah,” Natasha replied breathlessly, grinning up at him with that half-smile he adored so much, her hands on his face and in his hair. He smirked back at her and leaned down to kiss her mouth.  
“Make me,” he said.


	91. Hellhole

Bucky brought Steve breakfast the next morning and asked him how he was feeling again, but this time, he meant about his physical wounds.  
“I wish I could help you more,” Bucky said, sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed and turning over to look at him. Steve just smiled, shifting, and his face twisted in pain. Bucky pressed his lips together and looked down, swallowing, and thought. He hated the way he healed. It made him feel guilty, like he should be on a bed in pain, too. And it was so ridiculously inaccurate, because while he healed rapidly, horrifyingly rapidly on the outside, the inside only grew more and more sick. If he couldn’t heal his heart and he couldn’t heal Steve, why bother heal at all? “Regenerative properties really aren’t a lot of good here.”  
“Yeah, if only,” Steve said. “Don’t worry about it, I’m a super soldier, I’ll be fine.” Bucky looked back up at Steve and tried to smile.  
“Yeah,” he said and there was a pause where Steve closed his eyes and Bucky leaned over and pushed his own hair back off his forehead.  
“Why did they even want me,” Steve said quietly after a while. Bucky stared into the carpet.  
“Don’t be stupid, you know why,” he said and they lapsed into silence once more.  
Bucky thought for one moment that maybe they had wanted to brainwash Steve and use him too, but he knew that wasn’t it. They couldn’t break anyone like they’d broken Bucky. They would harvest what they could from Steve, spend years doing experiments, pump Bucky with what they could find, like they’d always done. More serums and more experiments, always trying to make Bucky stronger and scarier and less and less human and then they would throw Steve away. Bucky shuddered, disgusted to think of it. He looked over into Steve’s face and tried to picture him safe and happy.  
“Steve, you’ve gotta be careful, okay?” Bucky whispered. “For the both of us, okay?” Steve opened his eyes and looked at Bucky, whose face had gone white.  
“Buck-”  
“Have I mentioned that that is a hellhole?” Bucky cut him off, suddenly louder, suddenly all fear. “Have I brought that up? Cause it is and I can’t watch them… Can’t let them do to you the things they do to human beings.” Steve studied Bucky’s face for a long time before responding quietly.  
“Okay, Bucky,” he said. “I’ll be careful.” Bucky realized now that he was scaring Steve and he looked away, taking a breath.  
“Thanks,” he said and a long silence followed. Steve sat up straighter and looked at Bucky.  
“You wanna talk about it?” He asked and Bucky shrugged one shoulder weakly.  
“Not much to say that hasn’t already been said,” he said. “It’s a hellhole. You don’t wanna be alive when you’re there, but you are anyway and you have to stay alive. Thats the horror of it.” Steve swallowed loudly.  
“I’m sorry,” he said and Bucky didn’t know how to respond. He knew what Steve was thinking. If that was the things they did to human beings, what did they do to people they didn’t consider human? What did they do to Bucky?


	92. ---

It’s really hard some days to wake up and decide that you’re worth being saved and you’re worth being redeemed. That’s the first battle of the day, opening your eyes and telling yourself that you will let yourself heal, that you deserve to heal and you deserve to one day be happy. Sometimes, you lose those battles in the morning and that’s what makes the Bad Days. That’s when everything you do and see and are is poison, everything everyone tries to do for you twists the knife in deeper and nothing is ever okay. But there’s something to be said about spending a Bad Day with people who woke up that morning and decided for themselves that you were worth saving. As much as all you can do is feel like poison and unworthiness, they make you feel a little more okay and Bucky didn’t know how to thank Steve and Natasha for that. There weren’t words in any language he knew. There was no phrase he could write. Love is something that’s nearly impossible to describe, but Bucky tried to communicate it through small smiles and the way he tried to be okay when they asked him. He tried to communicate it through being there for them when they needed him and in the end, that’s all you really can do.


	93. Purpose

Natasha called in the morning, before he had quite had time to wake up, but he answered Steve’s phone from the couch in the living room anyway, standing up slowly, his words slurred with exhaustion.  
“Barnes, I’m glad you answered because I need another promise out of you,” she said.  
“Good morning, Natalia,” Bucky said, rubbing his eyes, but he couldn’t help but smile a little. “What do you need?”  
“Promise me you’re going to start waking up at decent times and that you are going to come over to my apartment today and start helping me move my books. I can’t lift the shelves myself,” Natasha said.  
“The Black Widow can’t move a bookshelf?” Bucky retorted teasingly. “Now, I don’t remember, but I’m sure I trained you better than that.”  
“James, you’re insufferable,” Natasha said, but he could hear a grin in her voice. “You’re lucky you’re so cute.”  
“You do realize I only have one decently functioning arm right now?” Bucky said. “And we have a man down over here.”  
“Promise me, Barnes,” Natasha said and Bucky smiled.  
“I promise you, Romanoff,” he said. “When do you want me?”  
“Lunchtime?” She said. “We could go get something afterwards.” Bucky looked back over his shoulder to Steve’s bedroom door, which remained shut, and felt a little guilty.  
“I dunno, what if Steve needs something?” He said.  
“Buck, I’m not a chronically ill ten year old anymore-I can take care of myself,” Steve said from behind him and Bucky jumped, whirling around.  
“When did you get up?!” Bucky cried, feeling ridiculous, and Natasha on the other line laughed. Steve was standing, his hair disheveled and his pajamas pant on and fresh bandages around his chest. He was eating a bowl of cereal, the box and carton of milk under his arm and he was grinning at Bucky. “And since when does anyone sneak up on me?” Bucky added, disgruntled.  
“You’re losing your touch, soldier,” Natasha said teasingly in his ear.  
“I get up at a decent hour,” Steve said mockingly as he passed Bucky back into his bedroom. “It’s almost ten.” And although Bucky frowned and grumbled, he realized he had never woken up happier.  
“Was that Natasha?” Steve asked when Bucky hung up the phone and followed him back into his bedroom. Bucky nodded and smiled a little.  
“We talked about it,” he said.  
“Finally,” Steve grinned, sitting back down on his bed, wincing slightly in pain as he rested his back against his pillows and very nearly spilled his bowl of cereal. He settled in and put the box and milk on the bedside table as he poured himself a second bowl. “Maybe now you and me can stop depressing each other.” Bucky could only smile and roll his eyes.  
“She’s moving in with me, Steve,” he said, his hands in his pockets, stepping closer to the bed and sitting on the edge and he was smiling because he couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m going over there to help her get started. We decided last night.” Steve dropped his spoonful of cereal back into his bowl, looking stunned. Then, he grinned widely at Bucky.  
“That’s great!” he cried. “That’s awesome! And you’re-you guys are happy?” Bucky took a deep breath and looked up, nodding slowly.  
“I think so,” he said. “She makes me happy.” And then Bucky began thinking about their promises and he wanted to talk about it, how Natasha had made him promise, but he didn’t know how to say it or even exactly what he wanted to say, all he knew was that he wanted to express it to Steve. And then finally, after a long pause as Steve ate and Bucky thought, he just said it. “She made me promise to live,” he said quietly and Steve swallowed and looked up at him, sensing suddenly that this was a heavier topic. And it was, Bucky thought, laden with emotion. He was grateful, so grateful that he could already feel tears stinging his eyes, but he was also afraid and he didn’t know how he was going to keep a promise like that.  
“I’m glad,” Steve said, setting down his empty bowl on the table. “That’s a good thing, Buck.”  
“I know,” Bucky said, looking down now at his hands. He watched the left one move in the stilted way it did, and considered how he had begun to compensate for the delay. “I’m just not sure how to do it, I guess.”  
“You’ve done it so far,” Steve said. Bucky closed his eyes and shook his head, scoffing.  
“Barely,” he said. “And not without practically weekly breakdowns and you two to call in the middle of the night. I’m a mess, Steve, I’m not living.”   
It occurred to Bucky that he was like a car wreck. Everything going up in smoke and explosions and it was so loud and horrific that everyone had to stop and watch.  
“Well, a pulse is a good place to start,” Steve said. “You’ll get better, Bucky.”  
“But that’s just it,” Bucky said. “I don’t know if I will. I really don’t know. Will I get better? Will I live that long? Does it matter, in the end?” Bucky watched Steve’s eyes grow hard and he sat forward a little. There it was, that was determined Steve. Unmistakable.  
“It matters,” he said. “You’ll live, you are living. Even with the breakdowns and the problems, your life has meaning, Bucky.” Bucky knew Steve was trying to help, but meaning had never even occurred to Bucky. It almost felt off-topic to him and he looked at Steve and thought maybe that meaning had occurred to Steve. He knew then, with some innate knowledge that came without memories, like a feeling, like something he’d always known about Steve, whether he remembered learning it or not, that Steve needed a cause. He needed a purpose. And that was who he was, he wouldn’t let himself die if not for some noble reason because this was Steve Rogers and he needed to put good in the world. Bucky looked down, considering the fact that he had just now put words to this intuitive knowledge about Steve and he wanted to write it all down. But more than that, he wanted to tell Steve that if Bucky’s life had any meaning, then Steve’s most certainly did. It always had.  
And he was about to try to put this into words now until Steve reached over and poured himself his umpteenth bowl of cereal and Bucky was too caught up in his astonished, teasing laughter to remember what he’d had to say.  
“How many bowls of that stuff have you even had this morning?” Bucky cried and Steve rolled his eyes, but his face was red.  
“Not that many,” he said.  
“Yeah, right,” Bucky replied and reached over Steve to shake the box and find it empty. He raised his eyebrows at Steve as he pulled back. “You ate an entire box of cereal for breakfast. A box. A whole box of cereal. For one meal.”  
“You can eat however much you want too when you’re the one with three bullet wounds in your chest,” Steve growled defensively. “It’s the serum, I have a high metabolism.”  
“Wow, tell me about it,” Bucky replied, but he was still smirking and trying to stifle his laughter.  
“Don’t you have somewhere to be,” Steve grumbled, but he still smiled at Bucky as he left.  
Bucky thought more about purpose as he walked over to Natalia’s, pulling his jacket up around his neck again because the cold was bitter. It did not escape his notice, however, the stares he received on the street, the people whispering, and he became overly aware of his arm, left entirely exposed by the one-sleeved jacket. He pulled his arm into his body tighter and pinched the obnoxious cord between himself to stop the swinging and put his head down, trying to pretend he didn’t notice. But he hated the staring. He hated it a lot.


	94. ___

James had not seen Natalia in weeks. He was counting the days since he had seen her last. He still met with every other Black Widow candidate that he trained, and various sleeper agents, but not Natalia, never Natalia. He could feel himself slipping. He was collapsing. He didn’t feel like James anymore and he missed her, so he needed to find her.  
When his handlers came for him that day, the men with the guns whose eyes he usually avoided, James looked up and stared them all hard in the face.  
“Get up,” one of the men said and for once, James didn’t move.  
“Why don’t I see Natalia Romanova anymore,” he asked. The handlers fidgeted under his empty glare. They weren’t used to being addressed by the Winter Soldier, like he thought himself to be on their equals. The first man to talk spoke up again and he was frowning.  
“Doesn’t matter to you,” he said and spat on the ground. “Now ge-”  
“It does matter to me,” James said and slowly, threateningly, he rose and his eyes never moved from the man’s face. “Where is Natalia Romanova?” Guns cocked, but James ignored them all. Let them shoot him, he didn’t care.  
“Your relationship was inappropriate,” the handler sneered. They knew. Of course they knew.  
“Why,” James retorted. “Because she treated me like a human being?” The man slapped the barrel of his gun in his hand and stepped forward into James’ space until their noses were inches apart. James refused to move. He wouldn’t be intimidated away by this short man with a gun. He wanted Natalia.  
“If you know what’s good for you, comrade,” the man said, spittle flying off the ends of his words. “You’ll shut the hell up right now.” James glared and ground his teeth, but a new plan half-formed in his mind as the barrel of a gun was pressed to his temple. He had to get out of this room first, get to the training room. He had to let them think he was letting it go.  
So as much as James hated it with every screaming piece of him, he relaxed his shoulders and lowered his gaze and stepped back a little from the man. His handlers laughed to each other, relieved, and swung their guns around. He let them push him roughly out of the room and walk him down the halls.  
“What did he think he was gonna do anyway? Stupid piece a-”  
“Ha, even the bloody Winter Soldier knows who’s in charge here!”  
“You gonna try to look me in the eye again, filth??”  
I’m a prisoner. I’m a prisoner.   
James ignored them, blocked them out, repeated his own name to himself, repeated Natalia’s name. He knew who he was and he wouldn’t let these weak, trigger-happy pawns get the best of him. So he glared hard into the ground, trying to channel away his hatred and just get to the room.  
Just get to the training room.  
They flung James into the room then and he stood there, listening to them walk away, still laughing to themselves like they’d won some grand victory over him. He had only minutes to wait for the next trainee, and he stood with his arms crossed, patient.  
When she finally arrived, some Hallie Volkov, a Black Widow candidate, James didn’t let her fight him off. He grabbed her shoulders and slung her around, slamming her into the wall. Volkov gasped and struggled, but he had caught her off-guard and as her trainer, he knew her weaknesses.  
“Natalia Romanova,” James growled in her face. “Where is she.”  
“Who do you think you are?!” Volkov hissed, stunned, and she tried to rip herself away from him, but he squeezed with his left-hard-and heard something in her wrist snap. Volkov gasped and her face grew white. James didn’t see her knee come out swiftly underneath them until it got him in the gut and he pulled away for a second, unable to breath. “You’re out of your mind!” Volkov cried.  
“Where is she,” James said, strained, his arms around his stomach, fingers digging into his sides. He looked up at her, backing up, and roared. “WHERE IS SHE?!”  
“Kata! Kata, help!!” Volkov was shouting for someone and James forgot his pain for a moment to rush to her and clap his hand over her mouth, metal and unfeeling so if she bit him, he wouldn’t care, and with his right, he grabbed up her broken wrist.  
“Where is Natalia. Tell me where she is now, Hallie,” James hissed and Volkov stared at him, fear and resistance in her face, shaking her head until he pulled his hand away.  
“I don’t know, in the compound? I don’t keep tabs on Romanova, Winter Soldier!” She cried. “Why do you care, let me go!” But James already wasn’t listening and he dropped her wrist and burst out the door, his arms pumping and heart pounding, going as fast as he could. He heard people behind him, gunshots, feet, and shouting and thought maybe he hadn’t planned this out as well as he should have.  
But James did find the Black Widow compound, outrunning the bullets and the enraged handlers behind him, feeling like everything would be okay if he could just find Natalia. He threw himself at the door, screaming her name, and ran into the building.  
“Natalia!!” James yelled. There were people around him, none of them were her, he wasn’t quite sure he was in the right place, but then, he came skidding to a stop as he caught a glimpse of red hair and he yelled to her again. “Natalia, it’s James! They’re right behind me!” Natalia whirled around and saw him and he recognized panic registering in her features. She ran to him and she was trying to say something, but then behind him, another gun went off and James felt a bullet hit him in the back of his leg, like an exploding of pain, and he cried out and, as though he were watching from outside himself, saw himself collapse. More bullets now, tearing right through him, one in his right shoulder, one glancing off his left arm, one grazing the top of his head.  
“Don’t kill!!” He heard screaming commands behind him. “Do not kill the Winter Soldier!” Natalia collapsed next to James, grabbing him before he fell further and he was seeing red in the edges of his vision, watched blood pool underneath him, and tried to focus on her face. Her mouth was moving, her hands were on his face, on his chest, on his shoulders, her eyes were red.  
“James, James, James,” she was crying.  
“Natalia, where were you,” James heard himself say. “I haven’t seen you in eighteen days, almost nineteen-”  
“I know, I know, I tried to find you,” Natalia was saying and she was holding him to her chest, but he couldn’t gather the strength to move either of his arms and hug her back. He was losing consciousness.  
“I don’t want to be here, Natalia,” he was mumbling. “I hate this, I hate this.”  
“I know, oh James,” Natalia stroked his hair and he was being surrounded by the men with the guns, the handlers, he heard urgent commands and walkie-talkies and all he felt was the warmth of Natalia’s body next to his and the heat rising off his blood as it soaked his shirt and pants.  
Then, the warmth of Natalia was gone, he looked up, his vision fading and fuzzing and going in and out, to see the men put their hands on her, point guns at her, drag her away. She was hysterical, she was screaming. Fight them, James thought and it was almost funny because he could see himself in every punch she threw. Go fast, don’t hold back, be ruthless. He taught her well, but with so many guns and so many guards, she was being dragged down quickly. Then, he couldn’t hold himself up any longer, he was seeing black spots, and he felt the back of his head smack the pavement behind him.  
His hands were tied, his leg and shoulder screamed, he was being dragged. Black.  
He couldn’t see, but he heard men talking. Black.  
Surgery, taking bullets out, sewing up holes. He was restrained and the pain was too much. He screamed, really screamed, guttural like an animal with pain and frustration and horror. Someone was in his face. Black.  
When James was finally coming back, his head spinning, a nauseous feeling in his stomach, he was being strapped into a chair. Something in him recognized this, he didn’t want this, this was so much worse than death, than physical pain, so much… He fought the restraints, howling, shaking, hyperventilating, until metal closed over his face.  
Natalia Natalia Natalia Natalia  
“Wipe him.”  
There was an electrical shock in his head, a burning away, then black.  
The Winter Soldier opened his eyes and there was a sobbing woman tied up in the corner. He blinked slowly, his head was all pain.  
“James,” the woman was weeping. He stared at her. Then the Winter Soldier was grabbed, shoved roughly back down.  
“Wipe him again.”  
“... Again, sir?”  
“Again.”  
“You’re going to KILL HIM!! PLEASE!!”  
“Wipe him again, that’s an order.”  
“We’ve never-”  
“Do it!”  
“Please, please, please… James…”  
The Winter Soldier was confused, his head was screaming, he felt himself shaking violently. Metal closed over his face.  
There was an  
an  
There was electrical there was an electr  
shshshshock  
HHHEADin hisinshhhhhhockhhhe  
bla  
thenballakkkkkk  
burnburnb  
b-b-b-blaaa

Black.


	95. Disoriented

She woke the moment she felt the bed shift and James bolt upright. She blinked and looked over at him through the moonlight and the shadows stretching dark lines across his face and chest. He sat rigidly, staring forward, his hands fists. Natasha pulled herself up a little and put a hand on his shoulder and was about to say something, but he spoke before she could.  
“Bucky Barnes,” he said breathlessly. “My name is Bucky Barnes.” Natasha looked James up and down quickly, assessing the tension in his shoulders, the fear in his face, and melted. Nightmares.  
“Yes, that’s right,” she said quietly and he turned to her quickly.  
“James Buchanan Barnes,” he whispered and she nodded.  
“You got it,” she replied.  
“Natalia Romanova,” he said next and she tried to smile at him, but it felt forced. She rubbed her thumb gently on his shoulder and cocked her head.  
“That’s me,” she said.  
“Okay, I-I,” James said and he looked confused, disoriented. “Where am I, where… How did I… Where am I??”  
“You’re at home,” Natasha said. “You’re in our apartment, in bed. We were just sleeping.” She watched him turn forward and swallow. She slid her hand across his back to his prosthetic shoulder and wrapped her other arm around him, trying to comfort him. “You’re safe. You’re with me, Natalia, you’re okay.” James stared forward, his eyes wide, and she watched him slowly bring his hands to his head and take a breath.  
“I was just…,” he said. “My mind, they… They were taking things.”  
“They weren’t, Bucky, sweetheart, you’re fine,” Natasha said. “They didn’t touch you, I swear.” James looked over at her and she touched his face. “You’re perfectly safe here.” They sat there for a moment while James attempted to regain his bearings.  
“It was a dream,” he whispered hoarsely and she nodded.  
“Just a nightmare. But you’re awake and you’re okay now, alright?” She said.  
“Alright,” James said, but she waited for his shoulders to relax or for him to lay back down and he didn’t. She watched him try to breathe. “Natalia, it felt so real,” he said quietly and Natasha looked at him sympathetically. He was so disoriented, so confused and scared.  
“That’s okay,” Natasha said, turning herself to face him more, and took his hands gently from him. “I’ll help you. You know things, James, okay?”  
“Okay,” James repeated after her blankly and Natasha realized that she would have to lead him more.  
“You know your name,” she said.  
“I know your’s,” he added.  
“You know Steve’s,” she continued.  
“Steven Grant Rogers,” James said back like he had burned it into his mind and she nodded.  
“That’s the guy,” she said. “What else do you know, let’s see… You know the year.”  
“195-no, wait,” James stopped himself. “2… 2014.”  
“That’s right,” Natasha encouraged him, smiling gently at him. “You know where you are now, remember, I just moved in?”  
“I, yeah. Yeah, this is our apartment. Our bedroom,” he said and she nodded.  
“You know, oh, let’s see…,” Natasha thought and then turned around to check the clock. “You know it’s 5:07 because I just told you.” He smiled at her blankly, looking still distant. “You know Steve is your good friend and that I love you.”  
“I know we live on… Nasland Street,” James added quietly. “Today is November…”  
“Ninth, it’s the ninth today,” Natasha added for him.  
“Thanks,” James replied and she smiled at him.  
“Of course,” she said. “You know that I’m never letting Hydra take you again, I’ll always come for you and you know you’re going to be okay.” James stared for a while and then he nodded quietly.  
“I’m gonna be okay,” he repeated after her and let her push him back down gently onto the mattress and pull the rest of the blankets up around him. She snuggled herself up next to him, her arm across his chest and her head near his. He looked at her now with a sudden growing clarity. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your sleep, I-”  
“Hush,” Natasha said and kissed him on the mouth, picking up one of her hands to run through his hair. “It’s fine.”  
“I swear I’m not like this every night,” James insisted and Natasha just smiled at him again.  
“Even if you were, I wouldn’t mind, James Barnes,” she said to him and he closed his eyes and let out a breath as she picked herself up enough to lean over and kiss him on the forehead.


	96. Electrocuted

With Bucky’s new arm, showering had become so much more difficult than simply only having to use one hand. Every time he got in, he had to hold his entire left arm away from his body and not let it get wet. He’d tried wrapping it in plastic or trying to find some sort of cover, but so far, all had proven only uncomfortable failures. He had, however, succeeded in keeping it mostly dry most of the time and he was succeeding that morning, making use of the skills he’d gained while missing an arm. He could open shampoo bottles with one hand and scrub his hair well enough. Of course, now he had to devote some attention to keeping his left side out of the water, but that didn’t matter, he could manage.  
Until, that is, he didn’t.  
And he didn’t realize he had even done it for a moment or so, until he got the distinct feeling that he was forgetting something and he saw blue electricity spark out of the corner of his eye. Bucky yelped, suddenly he could feel the shocks beginning to surge through him, mild at first and growing, and he kicked the water tap off with his foot and reached back to pull the prosthetic off. He wasn’t sure, through the pain that blinded him then, whether that meant that he had succeeded or if he was now simply being electrocuted to death. He consciously tried to yell for Natalia, but he couldn’t hear himself. He felt his head smack the shower wall, he tasted blood in his mouth, he reached for his left to find an empty space there. Then, everything exploded.  
The dam in Bucky’s head burst and suddenly, he wasn’t on the floor of his shower anymore, dripping wet and feeling the electricity pulse through him. He was everywhere at once, everything in one place.  
It wasn’t 2014, it wasn’t, it was 1956 and he was going back on ice. He could feel himself become cold, feel it freeze into his body until it grasped his very bones and he stared into his own reflection thoughtlessly until he couldn’t see anymore.  
It was 1939 and he and Steve were at a baseball game, going halves on a giant box of caramel corn.  
He was watching soldiers and friends from the 107th bleed out.  
He was feeding a younger sister and listening to his father lecture about not fighting the other kids anymore.  
He was sitting next to Steve and wondering when everything went wrong as they prepared to ambush another Hydra base.  
He was killing two American men.  
Natalia he was running he was yelling for her NATALIA there were bullets he felt pain  
He was following orders, just following orders, and he pointed the gun.  
He was hit over the head by handlers and he felt blood, but he didn’t say anything and no one noticed.  
He was in Brooklyn, in Russia, in London, in Germany, in Switzerland, in Chicago, in DC, in Ukraine, on his bathroom floor, a few feet away from his short-circuiting left arm.  
And it hurt. Beyond the pain of being shocked that made his whole body sore and the electric pain webbing out from his now-empty metal socket, his head felt like it was exploding. He wasn’t entirely sure when and where and who he was. There was too much, it was an information overload, it was all there, all of it, an entire lifetime.  
Through the memories, he caught flashes of Natalia in his face and there was panic in her eyes and he felt like he wanted to rejoin whatever time and place that was in order to soothe the fear out of her face. He tried to lift his hand to reach her, but nothing moved and he wondered where his left arm went.  
Then, he was gone, more times, more places, he was flickering through them all, being every one.  
Although he only had at least seven years worth of memories of the Winter Soldier total, the rest of the time he assumed spent in cryostasis, each and every memory during that time was beyond painful. He felt a distinct sting in his head as his programming protested against it, but he saw everything. He could feel the collapse inwards on him and he realized that he had been holding this misconception that regaining his memories might be a good thing.  
He realized with a very real pain and panic and fear that regaining his memories was absolutely not a good thing.


	97. Loving

Natasha grabbed James’ arm, kneeling next to him in the water, and he looked at her slowly, blinking, but his eyes were blank and she could tell he was registering nothing.  
“James, don’t do this to me, come on, talk to me,” Natasha begged him, pushing dripping hair off of his forehead, but James remained unresponsive. Natasha was at a loss. She didn’t know what had happened, what she was supposed to do. Blinking away tears of fear, Natasha stood and hauled James to his feet. He complied slowly, standing and using the back wall to balance himself while Natasha wrapped a towel around his shoulders. She watched his lips part, his eyes moving back and forth rapidly, as though he were examining something, but she couldn’t see anything. She tried Russian now, hoping to get some response out of him.  
“Come on, James, Bucky, please,” Natasha said. He wasn’t looking at her and Natasha squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and took a breath and tried to tell herself that he was going to be okay. She could help him.  
James was easily led back to the bedroom, taking small steps, with his hand in one of hers and her other hand on his back, and he seemed to be able to hear her and understand her enough to dress himself when she asked him to. Then, Natasha called Steve, standing outside of the room and cupping her hand around her mouth in order to be quiet.  
“Steve, how fast do you think you could get down here?” She asked and she realized that her voice was shaking, warbling and before she knew it, hot tears were streaking her face.  
“Natasha, what’s wrong?” Steve asked urgently. She could hear him sit up, she felt the fear in his voice.  
“It’s James,” she said, her voice breaking. “There’s something… Wrong, he’s not responding to me.”  
“Is he hurt?” Steve asked. She could hear him throwing on clothes, grabbing his keys, heard his door slam.  
“I think so,” she replied. “He got that damn arm wet, I think he got electrocuted and now he’s just staring. He seems to be okay, he can walk, he’s not burned, but… There’s just something wrong.”  
Steve stayed on the phone with Natasha until he was at their door and he burst in, frantic. He wasted no time in finding James sitting on their bed, leaning over his knees, covering his eyes with his hand. Water ran in rivulets down his face, his hair still sopping and his clothes sticking to him because he hadn’t taken the time to dry himself. Steve grabbed his shoulder and however much he could of James’ now-empty left socket while Natasha stood behind them and watched. James looked up slowly.  
“Buck, are you okay? What is it?” Steve cried and they both watched as James didn’t even stop to register Steve’s face. He was a million miles away, silent.  
Steve and Natasha did everything they could to draw a rise out of James throughout the day. They talked to him, tried to show him things, tried to touch him and see if he responded. He would stand sometimes and then sit back down, as though he had forgotten what he had stood to do. He tried to close his eyes, tried to cover them, tried to keep the lights off, despite how often Natasha turned them back on. Sometimes, seemingly randomly, tears ran down his face and he made little effort to dry his cheeks until either Natasha or Steve held him long enough to settle him down. All the while, he was silent.  
And the thing was, it was scarier that way. It almost more unpredictable that way. Natasha didn’t know what was wrong, if this had something to do with his programming, if they should get him to a hospital. She just didn’t know.  
If he talked, things would have been better.   
If he made eye contact with her, things would have been better.  
If he’d screamed and ranted or shook violently. If he’d hit things or broke things. If he had physical burns, she would have known what to do and she could have helped him and things would have been better.  
But this way, it was like he was gone. There was no light in his eyes, like a switch had gone down inside him and turned off James Barnes. His gone-ness scared her so much, chilled her to her inside, and she thought for a while that it reminded her of when she had first met him and his emptiness was like a cavern, a dark and unending pit that scared her in it’s deepness, but she knew thinking about it that it wasn’t exactly like that. It wasn’t just the emptiness in itself. It was the absence of James. It was loving the person that was there and then seeing it wiped away, and that was scarier. And still, still horrifyingly familiar.  
She couldn’t help him.  
His ruined cyberarm stayed on the bathroom floor, irreparable, until Steve managed to scrape the melted plastic off the floor and throw it away.  
When night came, none of them wanted to sleep, but Steve was tired and Natasha knew he must be sore, so she had him sit on the couch and tried to get James to lay down, maybe sleep. He shook her off persistently until finally, Natasha just sat next to him and let him stay there. She curled up on the end of the bed near him, half-asleep, just awake enough to listen to him and be aware of his presence next to her.  
She knew they both felt it, her and Steve, this constant fear that came with loving Bucky Barnes. He was fragile, like porcelain, and precious because neither of them thought they’d ever see him again. He must be handled with care at all times, and reminded, for the sake of his sense of self-worth and happiness, that he was loved and really, truly treasured.  
But when things like this happened, Natasha realized that she could never fully understand James and in that way, she had already failed him and was preparing herself to fail him more in the future. She and Steve, they were failing him. Maybe their love wasn’t enough to heal him.  
Natasha laid there, sleepily thinking these things until she thought she heard something from James, something intelligible and she shot up again, awake, ready to listen to him.  
“James, did you say something?” Natasha asked, using one arm to prop herself up and look him in the face and the other to rub her eyes and she watched him look at her now, focus on her face, and his eyes were unreadable. He swallowed and his breathing sounded forced and he tried to speak again several times. He was speaking English.  
“I just said…,” he whispered to her, taking a breath and swallowing. “I just thought… I dunno… I don’t want it, I-I don’t… It was a mistake, I don’t… I want it gone, I can’t… live like this, I can’t go on knowing this, what I’ve done, what I am-”  
“James, what are you talking about?” Natasha asked desperately.  
“I remembered,” he replied slowly. “Not… Everything. There are holes… Where things are just gone… Burned out, but I know… I know things now. And I can’t live with it.” Natasha pushed herself up entirely until she was facing him, but when she tried to take his hand, he took it back. Natasha felt that poignant fear, that fear that came with loving him.  
“What do you mean?” She whispered back to him. “What do you remember?”  
“Everything I can, I think,” he said. “I got shocked and then… It was like I couldn’t not remember anymore. But I don’t want it, it’s too… Too much...” Natasha didn’t know what to say.  
“I am so sorry,” she finally said to him but he didn’t respond.


	98. Remembering

He didn’t know how long it had been or what had happened and he was just beginning to remember where and who he was.  
It was dark now and Natalia had been asleep, so hours must have passed and he missed them. The last thing he remembered in the continuity of the day was electrical sparks from his left arm, dripping in water, the back of his head smacking the wall, and then everything was a haze, in a deep fog.  
He had thought it had been difficult earlier, when he had nothing but Steve and Natasha and the next day to look forward to. He thought it had been hell not knowing, with an emptiness in his skull and a plethora of dark rooms, but he realized that the true hell was the exact opposite. What really destroyed him was the knowing.  
He had his identity now, he could see everything, everything that hadn’t been completely and irrevocably burned out of him, and every hate thought, every feeling of revulsion and bitter shame, returned in full force. Now it was more than feelings, more than vague ideas of what he had been and what he had done.  
Now, the true trial began because oh, did he have something to hate now.  
He remembered the breakdown he’d experienced months ago upon remembering in sudden detail that he had murdered the Starks. This was like that, he realized, except that this, this returning of memories, dwarfed the one memory that had very nearly destroyed him. This was the big drop, the climax, the point of everything that had been leading up to now. This was everything, everything all at once, everything he was unprepared to handle. This would be the thing that would kill him. He could actually feel himself relapsing.  
And in a sense, he still had nothing. Now, he had this damned, wretched identity to live with, but for it, he had traded what he’d really wanted all along. All the progress he had made towards that goal of happiness, all the work he had done to get better, to be better, vanished like it had never been there. He realized he had never felt so weak, not in months. Must he truly make that trade? Could he not have both? Was he so cursed as to not have the luxury of memories and happiness together? It was one or the other for him. He didn’t deserve to have both.  
“Where are you going?”  
Away. Run until you reach the edge of something and jump. Who cares what’s at the bottom, just jump.  
“Out,” he said.  
“Are you okay? Maybe you should stay here.”  
“I-... No. No,” he replied.  
“Well then, let me come with you.”  
“Stay away from me,” he said back. “Don’t-Don’t… Don’t touch me.”  
“Buck, you’ve been disoriented all day. Stay here, sit down, we’ll talk about this.”  
“I’m not disoriented. I know what I’m doing.”  
Steve’s hand was on his shoulder and Bucky felt a reality of where he was and what was going on slam into him. He pulled away from Steve frantically, grinding his teeth together, squaring his feet, trying to ignore that pounding of run run run in the back of his head.  
Because for once, it wasn’t just that in his head. He saw murders and torturing, he saw Steve 2014, Steve 1945, Steve 1932, so much all at once and so overwhelming, it hurt, it pained him, he didn’t know what to do with this information overload and suddenly, it was down to fight or flight. He didn’t realize he was breathing hard.  
Everything was coming into him now, he was realizing his surroundings instead of numbly travelling.  
It was dark. Natalia was back in the bedroom. Steve was in front of him, stopping him in front of the door, touching him after he told him not to. Everything rose up inside him with a resentful bite.  
“I’m not, not disoriented, it’s actually, no, I’m finally really oriented for once!” Bucky cried and his breath in and out and in and out was shaky. He was stammering. “You’re the confused one here, I know who I am!! Okay, I remember everything!!”  
“I know who you are, too, Bucky,” Steve said and Bucky heard screaming and it sounded like his voice, but he couldn’t quite keep up, he didn’t know exactly what was going on.  
“No! No, you don’t!! Because you weren’t there! You weren’t there! You haven’t seen the things I’ve done, you haven’t watched yourself do them like I have!” Bucky cried. “So, no, Steve, you have no idea who I am. Now get out of the way!”  
“Or what,” Steve challenged him, shouting. “Or you’ll do what!”  
A million empty threats ran through him, just a list of biting things to say, just a list of things he could do, things he had done, and although he had no intention of even saying any of them, the fact that they occurred to him to threaten Steve with at all made him want to throw up. A fresh wave of hatred made him shudder in it’s intensity.  
How could you love me, why do you love me?  
run run run run run run get somewhere get away jump  
“Or, nothing,” he whispered back, his shoulder slumping, backing away from the door and from Steve. “Or I’ll do… Nothing.” Steve’s face softened and he stepped closer to Bucky, but Bucky pulled away again. “I said don’t touch me,” he repeated himself, his voice still low and defeated.  
“Alright,” Steve said gently. “Alright, I won’t. Do you want to talk?” Bucky shook his head.  
“No,” he said back. Then, he continued, although he had been certain that he didn’t want to discuss it. “I remember everything. Every barrier is just gone. It’s like I was hit with it. I don’t… Want it. I thought, I’d hoped… It would come back slowly, or just not at all. But I can see every… every… I-I-” He couldn’t say it. Murder. Kill. Target. “Like it was y-yesterday…”  
“What about the good things?” Steve asked.  
“What good things,” Bucky replied. He felt almost lightheaded, almost out of breath. He wanted to slow his racing heart but didn’t know how.  
“Remember the time we went and saw that firework show together?” Steve asked and although Bucky knew that he remembered it all, he had it all back, it still surprised him to realize that he did know what Steve was talking about. He focused in on that memory, tried to block out the screaming over everything else that was filling him up inside.   
“The, uh, the one downtown,” Bucky added quietly. Focus on it. Be calm. “And the popcorn there was gross.” Steve smiled gently at him.  
“Yeah, yeah,” he encouraged him. “We had fun then.” Bucky didn’t quite know how to feel about this as he relived that firework show in his mind. No more snippets of Steve, no more living on just images. He had an entire memory in his mind, more than just memories of murder and assassinations. He remembered Steve. He nodded slowly.  
“Yeah, we did,” he replied.  
“You remember Christmas, when your mom made that cake and I stayed at your place later than I was supposed to and nearly got grounded on a holiday?” Steve continued and Bucky nodded slowly.  
“I felt really bad about that,” he said thoughtfully. “But you just thought it was hilarious.”  
“It was!” Steve cried and he grinned widely now. Bucky studied the ground, reliving and reminding himself to take breath after breath, even though it hurt. “See,” Steve added quietly. “See, there’s good stuff to remember, too.” Bucky nodded slowly, his eyes stinging with tears.  
“Remember, uh, that time we tried to make snow cones and got water all over your kitchen?” Bucky said and Steve was smiling and nodding.  
“Yeah, yeah, I do, Buck,” he said. “You thought that was pretty funny until my mom got home.” Bucky couldn’t help but smile a little back, blinking and trying not to let Steve see that his eyes were watering.  
“I just didn’t get how one kid could accidentally pour that much water all over himself,” he said. “You were a dork.”  
“That wasn’t me, that was all you, you hit my elbow!” Steve retorted and Bucky wanted to smile more, but a headache he hadn’t realized he had was growing more ferocious by the minute now, as though it was penance for all these happy memories, as though to remind him that he was Bucky Barnes and he couldn’t have both.  
“I’m gonna, I’m gonna lay down,” Bucky said quietly and turned around to return to his bedroom, where Natalia was standing silently in the doorway and she shut the door behind him and held him, sitting on the bed they shared, until he could tell she was asleep.  
He was gone by the morning.


	99. ---

It was like bright lights. That’s what it was, like bright, blindingly bright lights had been turned on in nearly every room in his head. No corner that was still there to be lit was left dark. His eyes stung and he saw orange spots staring into the intensity of that light. It was painful and revealing. It hurt in the suddenness and it hurt in the intensity and it hurt with the brightness. But it also hurt and it carved away at him from the inside because he was realizing now that there was blood on the walls of the rooms in his head, just smeared in it, and how it glared bright under that light.  
He never dreamed that he would wish for the dark again.


	100. Walk

He told himself that he was okay as he wandered DC, following the way the rising sun was hot on his back despite the cold and the way the receding dark was interesting to him. He paid a street vendor for some bread pastry he didn’t know the name of, but found he had no appetite to eat it and handed it to the next homeless man he saw around the corner. He didn’t really know where he was going or what he was doing. All he knew was that he couldn’t stay there.  
He knew Steve and Natalia would find him gone and would panic. They would look for him, they would recruit others, but Bucky didn’t want to be found quite yet. He wanted to be alone because he had his own search to pursue. He had to find out where to begin, or else simply how to carry on. He needed to see that starting point because where he was now, he just didn’t know where to go.  
Bucky avoided places he knew Natalia and Steve would look. He looked at things in shop windows and crossed streets he didn’t know the names of and tried not to think about the bad memories. And mostly, people left him alone, excluding the uncomfortable stares that he was bound to receive, until he sat down at a table outside a restaurant sometime in the afternoon, when the day was becoming just a little warmer, and was approached by a little boy.  
“Where’s your arm?” The kid asked and Bucky looked at him and wasn’t quite positive how to respond. He wasn’t used to talking to strangers.  
“It, uh, it got stolen,” he admitted and the kid nodded thoughtfully until an embarrassed parent showed up, a mother holding an infant and trying to pull her five year old away.  
“I’m so sorry, sir,” she was saying. He shrugged.  
“It’s fine,” he replied, because it was. And then, the kid continued and said, “Are you Bucky Barnes?” Bucky stared at him, stunned, unsure if he’d really heard what he thought he’d heard. And he supposed that he knew there were museum exhibits about him and that he’d been in the newspapers and that since Captain America and the Howling Commandos were household names, he should be recognized every now and again, but he remained shocked.  
The embarrassed mother scolded her son and then turned to Bucky and tried again to apologize.  
“He really loves Captain America,” she said. “He asks anyone he thinks might look like him.”  
“If you wait around long enough, I’m sure he’ll show up,” Bucky told the kid, because it was true. “He and the Black Widow have been on my tail all day.” The look on the little boy’s face made Bucky smile a little.  
“You are Bucky?” The boy asked and although Bucky’s first impulse was to say something like, ‘unfortunately’ or ‘I’m still not entirely sure’, he couldn’t disappoint this poor kid, so he finally just smiled weakly and nodded.  
And besides, he remembered what Steve had said about identity and how he would always be Bucky. And he remembered other things now, too. Melting snow cones at the Rogers’ home. Christmases gone hilariously awry. And whether or not he was entirely convinced that he would ever be okay again or redeemed again, he at least knew he could make some kid on the street happy and that Steve Rogers believed that he had good enough in him to be Bucky Barnes.  
“Yeah, I’m Bucky,” he admitted and the boy couldn’t seem to contain his excitement. He watched him scramble for a paper and a pen and Bucky felt a little flattered and happily signed the napkin the boy found, even though he needed help holding it down because he didn’t have a second hand to do it himself. And that encounter had delighted Bucky so much that he wasn’t even overly upset when he noticed the kid’s mother’s face go white when she realized that her son was getting a napkin signed by the Winter Soldier and hastily hauled him away. He waved to the little boy as his mother hurried him along and the boy waved cheerfully back.  
He decided then to stay at the restaurant and wait for Steve and Natalia to catch up to him, so he ordered himself a bowl of spaghetti and sat, waiting. It had been a long day and he hadn’t realized how hungry he’d become and that he couldn’t remember the last meal he’d eaten.  
Natasha found him first, as he had suspected she might. He could see tension slip off her shoulders and face when she spotted him and she ran to him, taking out her cell phone.  
“He’s here, he’s on the corner of Monroe and Davis,” she was saying. She sounded so relieved and she collapsed into the chair across from him as he wound more pasta around his fork slowly.  
“Took you long enough,” Bucky teased quietly as he pushed his spaghetti around his plate. Natasha glared at him, her arms crossed.  
“You think this is a game, Barnes?” She retorted. He only raised his eyebrows and stared into his food. “You went AWOL, you just… Disappeared! Do you have any idea how scary that was for us?” Bucky took another bite silently. “We had no idea what had happened to you, what if it was Hydra, what if you were hurt, what if you out there, confused?!” Bucky was silent. It hurt him a little to think that she’d believe it plausible that he would simply leave because he was confused or that he could be so disoriented to think he was in some war again, but it hurt more to force himself to accept that it wasn’t so outrageous an idea. He wouldn’t put it past himself sometimes on a Bad Day. “James?” She cried. “Are you listening to me?”  
“I met a fan today,” Bucky told her, mostly because he was still in shock about it and because he didn’t want to have an argument right now, didn’t want to take a scolding. “Would you believe that? A fan. Of me. He recognized me, wanted an autograph.” Bucky stirred his pasta. “I thought all that stuff was just for Steve, you know?” Natalia didn’t say anything. She leaned across the table and looked at him until his eyes shifted back up to focus on her face for the first time since she sat down. “Spaghetti?” Bucky asked, offering her his fork.  
“No,” Natalia muttered, sitting back. “Eat. Heaven knows you didn’t at all yesterday.”  
When Steve arrived, he pulled up another chair across from Bucky, both of them sitting directly across from him like disappointed parents.  
“I thought you weren’t going to leave,” Steve said. Bucky shrugged.  
“Just took a walk,” he replied.  
“A thirteen hour walk?” Steve said and Bucky didn’t respond.  
“I was going to come back,” he said finally.  
“How do I know?” Steve asked.  
“Maybe it’s none of your business,” Bucky said back a little too hastily, a little too angrily, his eyes flicking up to glare at Steve. Steve’s face hardened and he sat back. And, whoosh, there it was, that fire anger, the one meant for himself, meant to burn him, but instead lashed out and struck people who were getting close only to try and help. But Bucky didn’t know how to apologize, so he just set his fork down and leaned back as well, looking away into the street where cars roared by loudly.  
“Finish that,” Natalia instructed him and on impulse, Bucky replied with, “Not hungry.”   
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry,” she shot back. “You’re going to hurt yourself, just eat a solid meal, please?” And only because she said please did Bucky lean back into his bowl, frowning, and picked up his fork again.  
When he finished and paid the bill, Steve hailed a cab and had them all driven back to the apartments, complaining about the cold that Bucky had seemingly forgotten to notice.


	101. Memories

The Winter Soldier relived his entire life over and over and over, now that he knew the whole story. He tried, like Steve encouraged him to do, to focus on the good memories. The times when he was happy and whole. And he did make an effort to think of them often, to smile, to remember being more than this, but more often than not, he was dragged under into memories of murder and pain and staring at metal bars and cement walls.  
And it was difficult not to think about it. He dwelled on it, he wallowed in it. Remembering was a certain sort of torture he could give himself and he gave it to himself often.  
He remembered missions on American soil, blending in just so with his American walk and his American accent, the perfect, unassuming asset. Gunshots, blood, and not caring. Not caring at all. Then handlers, restraints, and cryofreeze if they didn’t need him anymore. He wasn’t a human being. He was a weapon and he wasn’t allowed to have things like emotions or relationships or opinions.  
And sometimes, sitting there, staring off and remembering, he felt again as though those things were out of his reach and he felt inhuman.  
“James Buchanan Barnes, are you listening to me?” Natalia. The Winter Soldier looked over at her and then fell over himself, scrambling, as his first instinct was to put distance between himself and her. He pressed his back to the opposite wall and looked at her, feeling like he was a weapon. He existed to kill and even though he was slowly trying to tell himself in his head that he was Bucky and he had no mission and he wouldn’t hurt her, he still felt uncomfortable with her that close to him.   
James Buchanan Barnes  
James Buchanan Barnes  
“Yes,” he said. Natalia was staring at him.  
“Did I startle you?” She asked.  
James Buchanan Barnes Bucky James not a weapon; a person  
“Yes,” he repeated himself and although she didn’t quite look like she believed him, she let it go. She was leaning over the kitchen counter, her elbows up, her hair in her face and he knew he couldn’t let himself tuck it behind her ear for her. Not until he had come back to himself a little more.  
“Why did you leave?” She asked. He looked at her and then shook his head.  
“I just… I needed to… I… Time to think. I needed time to think,” he said, and although this wasn’t untrue, it wasn’t the entire truth, he had realized as he thought more on his memories. That wasn’t all of it. The truth was, he felt too much like the Winter Soldier. He felt too inhuman and volatile and he couldn’t remember that he was free and safe. Instinct pulled at him to run, like he had at the very beginning, to be on the street, pulling hoods over his face so he couldn’t be seen and staying sleepless nights in shady motel rooms. That was what had drawn him to crawl out of his window, made him leave Steve and Natalia. He’d just felt like he should. Natalia nodded acceptingly and Bucky felt himself relax.   
“You know what else I want to ask,” she added after a while and Bucky nodded, wetting his lips almost nervously and running his hand through his hair.  
“Yeah, I know,” he said and pursed his mouth together, looking at the ground. “There’s not a lot there, though,” he said. “Of us.” It was still painful to remember some things, like a receding headache. Not as bad as before, but still a lingering, dull ache that subsided every time he drew on his new-found memory. However, thinking about Natalia in the Red Room still brought up a painful stinging, a sharp kind that twisted inside him and there were so many holes. He remembered her so vaguely. Natalia nodded again sadly and shifted against the counter.  
“I didn’t think there’d be much,” she said. “I just wanted to know.”  
“I don’t blame you,” he said.  
“And I don’t blame you,” she replied, looking up at him, and then she was moving around the counter and coming closer to him and he felt okay enough to let her put her hands on his waist and look up into his face. “I’m just so sorry. You deserve to know.” He didn’t know how to respond, so he only looked down at her and felt empty. It was funny now, this empty feeling, this dead feeling, because he thought that it all might be fixed when he was full again of his memories, but now it was instead worse. It was like the emptiness was heavier with his memories because it meant even with them, even more whole on the inside, he might never be okay. He would never be fully ‘fixed’. And the emptiness of years as the Winter Soldier compounded on top of him until he could now remember every second feeling dead. It was all at once overwhelming and distressing.  
Soon after, Bucky was shipped a replacement arm from Stark Industries and he squared his feet and gripped the counter for balance and grit his teeth while Natalia helped him click it in. But this time, the burst of pain was expected and Bucky was able to handle the way he could taste the bright, sharp pain even inside his mouth like he’d bit something bitter and the way electricity, or at least, something that felt like being electrocuted, rocketed through his chest and when it began to dull, he realized he had pulled back a little and the fingernails in his right hand were digging into his skin. But he could move both hands and arms now, he felt, at least, a little more whole.  
“Be careful this time,” Natalia said to him as he inspected his new left fingers, and he nodded a little.  
“Okay,” he agreed, then Natalia seemed to get some sort of idea, but he was too occupied with his arm to notice the spark in her eyes until he heard it in her voice.  
“Promise me,” she said and he almost smiled. “Promise.”  
“I promise I’ll be more careful,” he said to her and, since he hadn’t lifted his eyes from his hand, she twisted her fingers in with his and he noticed gratefully how she was patient with the way his fingers were delayed and jerky about wrapping gently around hers. He wished he could genuinely feel her hand, but when he looked over into her face, he realized he could settle with feeling the warmth of her smile.


	102. Russian

The assignment came in code, by telephone, and Bucky and Steve let Natasha work it out. While she worked, bending over the kitchen counter in pajamas with a pen and the back of a scrap of paper, Bucky began quietly naming memories.  
“You remember when you had that asthma attack once?”  
“Very specific, Buck.”  
“No, no, the one at the school and you freaked the teacher out.”  
“Yeah, I remember that.”  
“Okay,” Bucky said, because for some reason, that was all he really wanted to hear. Yeah, I remember that. Then, a couple of minutes later, “Do you remember the way your house’s roof was two different colors, it had some sort of dark brown, and then a grey, remember that?”  
“I remember that,” Steve said and Bucky nodded to himself.  
“Remember, um, that time you tried to fight the guys at that one dance we went to, and there was that one guy with the stupid hat that we made fun of all the way home?”  
“Yup, remember that, too,” Steve replied. Bucky almost worried that he was annoying Steve, but it was so comforting to hear this confirmation, to be able to share these memories with someone, that while he cared, he wasn’t sure if he could stop himself.  
“Do you remember when you got all that fanmail during the war, all those sweet little kids with those page-long letters?” Steve nodded, looked down, nodded again, and then wearily replied.  
“Yeah,” he said and at that moment, Bucky wanted to say, “Am I annoying you?” But he felt like another question after his long torrent wouldn’t have been tactful, so he instead lapsed into silence and sifted through his memories by himself.  
Then, it occurred to him one question that he could ask.  
“You okay?” He said quietly, nudging Steve’s arm and attempting to offer a smile and Steve looked over and smiled back, but in that reserved way he had sometimes, the way that Bucky had begun to recognise as a lie.  
“I just didn’t sleep well last night,” he said and by the way he hesitated before saying it, Bucky could tell it was the truth.  
“That’s all?” Bucky pressed, just in case, and Steve nodded.  
“Had, uh, a few nightmares, so I just stayed up after that and wasted time,” he admitted. Bucky remembered his walks through early-morning DC at the very beginning, when he still felt everything a danger and being a human being was a fresh experience. He’d been avoiding sleep then, and running from the night terrors, and trying not to think too hard. He understood staying up and wasting time.  
“You should have come over and woken me up. We could put on the television or something, it’s in color and everything,” he said.  
“Thanks, but I don’t wanna wake you,” Steve replied. “It’s fine.” Bucky didn’t want to pressure him, so he let it go, but not before saying, “If it’s ever not fine, I’d prefer you to wake me up.” Steve just nodded and Bucky looked back down to where he’d taken to studying his left, which was different in the fact that it was significantly more covered now, and much, much more water-proof. He was trying to see if, by sheer force of willpower, he could make his fingers move as quickly and as gracefully as his right did, although he knew it was more than a matter of concentration, but then Natalia sighed and stood up, holding her paper aloft and grinning.  
“Well boys,” she said. “We have our assignment from SHIELD. Steve, you’d better brush up on your Russian.” As much as Bucky told himself logically that he’d wanted this and he still wanted this, his stomach did a flip and he could feel himself protest inside. It’s a country, not a prison, he tried to remind himself. And Hydra’s a sinking ship already, it just needs a good kick is all.  
You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine.  
But he remembered something then, as he was sifting through memories, that made him feel fear into his core and in his twisted, convoluted, blood-smeared memories as the Winter Soldier, he didn’t know where from, he saw a man’s face and every muscle in his body tensed.  
Would Pierce be there? He didn’t know. He hoped not.  
Pierce was a recent memory, fresher, clearer than the rest, and there were many men before him, but none whose memories were so new and so violently fearful. He was smart, condescending and cruel. He meant missions, or wiping, or pain.  
The Winter Soldier remembered sitting in his kitchen, keeping to the darkness, watching him shoot some innocent women and feeling disgusted now because he felt distinctly nothing then.  
He remembered with a clarity, a sharp clarity, that condescending lie of an offer of milk. It was ridiculous, it was laughable, but it was another brick in the wall separating Bucky Barnes from being as human as anyone else. He felt humiliated, almost distinctly ashamed, even though he knew it wasn’t him that had done anything wrong.  
And he must have been making a face too, because Steve touched the Winter Soldier, grabbed his elbow and said, “Hey, hey Buck, you with us?” The Winter Soldier sprang out of his chair and he didn’t know where he was going to go, but he sure felt ready to run.  
“Pierce,” he said. “Pierce, is he, he’ll be there, we have to, I don’t want him to touch me, I-”  
“James!” Natalia cried at the same time as Steve’s confused, “What?”   
“James, Pierce is dead. He’s already dead. He was gone before you even got off that helicarrier, he can’t hurt you, okay?”  
“He’s dead?” The Winter Soldier repeated and took a deep breath of relief. “Oh, oh good, he’s dead…” The Winter Soldier gingerly eased himself back into his chair next to Steve and felt himself lean over the counter with his elbows up, his head in his hands. “He’s dead, he’s dead…”  
Bucky could see out of the corner of his eye, Steve mouthing to Natasha, “What were you saying?”  
“Pierce. He was scared.”  
“Oh.” And Bucky gathered himself together and scrubbed his face with his hands and looked up, taking a deep breath.  
“I’m okay now,” he said in slow English. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”  
“It’s fine,” Steve said and this time, it was Steve’s turn to nudge Bucky and smile comfortingly. “Don’t worry about it.”  
Later that day, unsurprisingly, because Bucky had been waiting to hear this for a while, Steve asked Bucky about the Russian.  
“How did you learn?” He asked cautiously, and Bucky wanted to let him know it was okay to ask, but he didn’t know how.  
“Trial and error, mostly,” he replied. “I think. And then a few various translators that I picked it up from. But it was total submersion, it was either learn the commands or, uh, face the consequences.”  
“And he’s nearly accent-less, too,” Natalia called from the other room and Bucky smiled. He would have been baffled about how she’d heard them talking, but he’d learned long ago that to be surprised, or delighted, with Natalia was only what it meant to be in her presence.  
“Would you be okay teaching me some of the basics?” Steve asked and although Bucky already knew the answer, he asked.  
“Why do you want to learn?” He said. Steve looked down and shrugged.  
“You speak it when you’re upset,” he said. “I don’t want to be unable to help you or talk to you if Natasha wasn’t there. And I’d rather hear it from you than anyone else, just if you’re okay with it.” Bucky nodded.  
“I’m okay with it,” he said and he didn’t even try to smile, just pressed his mouth together and breathed through his nose. “Thanks.”  
“Thank you,” Steve said sincerely and then the corners of Bucky’s mouth turned up because good old fashioned snark always lightened the mood and he replied, “You mean, ‘спасибо’.” Steve stared for a second and then it clicked and he laughed.  
“Say it again?” He said and Bucky repeated himself slowly and Steve repeated it back until Bucky was satisfied that his pronunciation was up to par.  
They did that back and forth with little words and basic grammar and Steve was a fast learner and by the end of the day, he could hold a small, polite conversation that consisted of mostly phrases like, “Hello”, and “How are you?”, and “I’m Captain America”. Steve was pretty excited about it and Bucky realized that this small session was the longest he’d spoken Russian in a long time. And even better and more important than that, it was the first time in ages that he’d spoken Russian very purposefully and without fear.  
There was a certain, small amount of regained control, Bucky thought proudly, because now this entire language wasn’t a taboo to him anymore and it held more memories than Soviets and Hydra. They couldn’t take this from him, not anymore. He had control over what language he would speak and both of them were great.  
“Hello!” Steve cried in accented Russian to Natalia once she re-entered the room and she laughed.  
“Hello,” she replied. “Aren’t you a fast learner.” Steve was turning red now as he was at a loss for things to say and Bucky translated quietly under his breath and even Steve was laughing.  
“Yes!” He agreed enthusiastically, then tacked on a, “I’m Captain America,” for good measure, either as an explanation or just an exclamation, Bucky wasn’t entirely sure, but Natalia had a hand clapped around her mouth, laughing and Steve was grinning.  
“He’s doing good,” Natalia commented in Russian to Bucky once she could stop laughing long enough.  
“I recognized ‘good’, what is she saying,” Steve said.  
“She’s complimenting you,” Bucky replied, then to Natalia in Russian. “He was always smart. We’ll have to keep working on it.”  
“Well, lucky him, he has a good teacher,” she replied.  
“I just know him well enough to know what he’ll respond to is all,” Bucky replied modestly, because it was the truth.  
“I dunno,” Natalia added over her shoulder as she turned to leave again. “I think the fact that I can speak English says otherwise.”  
And Bucky just smiled and leaned back in his chair and let himself take another minute to feel good about the fact that he felt better about Russian now.


	103. Media

It was weird, suddenly knowing things about a person like suddenly Bucky knew things about Steve. He felt still that level of distance from the person he used to be, the person whose eyes he saw memories out of, that Bucky 1.0 that walked with a confidence and woke up smiling most mornings, even when things were bad. He had done a 180, he wasn’t that person anymore and he couldn’t wake up smiling, but he still saw all of those things and he still knew those things about Steve.  
He knew now what kind of things Steve would want for breakfast. (Bacon, or at the very least, pancakes and syrup. Anything but the tasteless oatmeal they used to have.) He knew intimately most details of Steve’s previous disabilities. (Because it got so much worse than the asthma. So much worse.) He knew that Steve colorblindness used to make it so hard for him to do color art and he was often humiliated when he got a color wrong. (And Bucky did remember often pointing out the correct colors and trying to be nonchalant.)  
But there was still that distance and that awkwardness and Bucky thought that since he was so different now, maybe he shouldn’t have these memories, but it was still a matter of telling himself that he deserved them and they were his, no matter how difficult it was to believe that.  
He wrote more often still, trying to make sense of everything he felt because in words, his conflicted emotions were all so clear and so simple and nearly fixable from the unjudgemental vantage point of the page. It cleared his mind, it calmed him down.  
He was writing that day, sitting at his kitchen counter, when Steve knocked at the door and called through to him and Bucky called that he could let himself in and thought to himself that they must be paying that landlord handsomely to encourage him to look over all this noise.  
Steve tried to say hello in Russian and Bucky corrected his pronunciation and they practiced a small conversation back and forth as Steve pulled up a chair across the counter from Bucky.  
“You’re doing good,” Bucky said.  
“Thanks,” Steve replied, probably mostly because there wasn’t much else he knew how to say beyond what they’d practiced.  
“You want to do more practice today?” Bucky continued, speaking very slowly and trying to use his hands to make Steve understand. Steve only stared at him. “Practice,” Bucky repeated in Russian and tried to make a motion to his mouth. “Speaking.”  
“What,” Steve said. Bucky looked down at his journal then, open on the table, and felt for a moment alarmed that every deep thing he’d ever felt was written there, wide open and mostly in English, and any other time, he would have snapped the book closed and took it to his lap under the table, but instead, he flipped to an empty page in the back and took his pen and turned the book towards Steve.  
“You should actually probably practice writing today,” Bucky said in English and began writing out characters. “It’s a different alphabet. It’ll be hard to get used to.”  
Bucky remembered translators trying to get him to understand the alphabet. Hardly anyone spoke fluent English. He was surrounded by gibberish, on signs, on packaging, on papers and files. It frustrated them, his handlers and tormentors, because they couldn’t wipe him until he was fluent enough to retain comprehension after being destroyed yet another time. He got a lot of bruises and probably a few broken bones for misunderstanding, but dwelling on it was beginning to make him feel sick, so Bucky tried to put his mind off of it and considered instead how beautiful the language was in Natalia’s mouth and how hard Steve tried to learn, and just for the purpose of becoming closer to Bucky. Those were good things, and Bucky let out a breath and kept writing and pushed the book across the table to Steve. Steve had obviously recognized the book and Bucky remembered his outburst the last time it had been brought up. The red lines down the sides of the pages had mostly rubbed away and Bucky hadn’t done it again, per Steve’s request. And as Steve gingerly picked it up, trying to make sure Bucky was okay with it first, Bucky realized Steve couldn’t have gone through it. He wouldn’t have looked at it. He was his best friend and this was deeply personal and Steve was too honorable. Bucky’s secrets remained, as always, his, and Steve remained, as Bucky trusted him to be, honest.  
They discussed Russian, sending Bucky’s journal back and forth and Bucky felt comfortable with it in Steve’s hands, and as they talked, something occurred to Bucky to say because he had been meaning to say it and for a moment, he set his journal back down on the counter and changed the subject.  
“What all do people know about me?” Bucky asked Steve and Steve furrowed his brow and looked at him, confused.  
“What do you mean?” He said and Bucky shifted, thinking of that little boy on the street.  
“I mean, people know I’m alive, don’t they?” He said and Steve looked down and nodded. “What else do they know? What do they know about…” He really wasn’t sure what word to use or how he could gesture to reference what he was. “About this. The details.” The truth. The fact that he was a Soviet assassin, and a war criminal, and a murderer. “Not quite the ending they wanted to the all-American story they set up at the museum, I don’t think.”  
“No one’s going to mess with you, Buck,” Steve said. “That was sort of SHIELD’s division.”  
“I, uh…,” Bucky said. “I-” he swallowed and curled his left hand into a fist out of frustration and tried again, looking away. “I kill… Killed a lot of people. Over here,” he finally managed to admit aloud and he could feel raw panic settle in bits and pieces into his heart and he was breathing loudly and his mouth felt dry. “Is-Is there no… Is no one… Are they going to do anything?” Steve was looking at him, his elbows on the table, waiting patiently until he was sure that Bucky was finished speaking, that he’d said everything he could bring himself to.  
“There was a lot of confusion for a while, I think,” Steve said quietly, slowly. “Some panic. Some people talking about things they didn’t understand. No one knew the whole story. I stood up for you as best as I could-hey, hey, Bucky. Hey, shh, stop that.” Bucky felt his stomach leap, he thought he might throw up, and he was hyperventilating, didn’t realize he was gripping the edge of the table. “Breathe, Bucky, you’re fine, you’re okay,” Steve was saying but all Bucky could see was blood and murders and he felt this horrible fear that told him that he’d go to prison or they’d send him back to Russia or they’d lock him up and leave him to wait alone for his death with white walls and bars and it wasn’t any more than he deserved, but… But he was so scared.   
“It wasn’t my fault,” Bucky tried to say, but his voice was hoarse and whispery and he was beginning to feel dizzy.  
“I know it wasn’t,” Steve said. “Now just stop for one second and breathe, please. In, yeah okay, and out. In-” And Bucky sucked in a shaking breath. “And out.” And he let it go, letting go of the table and he didn’t know what to do with his hands now, so he put them under the table and tried to use his left to rub his right, except that it was too stilted to do much good soothing him. “Don’t get scared, I told you no one’s going to do anything to you. I am Captain America, my word means something sometimes. And besides, that wasn’t even really it. You’re the one that convinced them all.”  
“Of what,” Bucky asked quietly.  
“Of your sincerity,” Steve said. “Of the fact that you aren’t evil, or deserving of any persecution.”  
“I didn’t…,” Bucky said. “Didn’t do anything.” Steve smiled a little at him.  
“You actually did. Two things, really,” he said. “One is that you saved me. You saved my life back there with that falling helicarrier.” Bucky was shaking his head.  
“I,” he said. “Beat the tar out of you.”  
“And then you didn’t let me drown,” Steve replied. “That was important, that gave me a lot of leverage handling the bad-mouthing bozos out there. And the second thing was that overpass deal.”  
“What overpass,” Bucky asked.  
“People got pretty excited to see some mysterious guy saving lives,” Steve said. “And when they identified you, well, people couldn’t leap to get on your side fast enough.”  
“You mean the overpass where I,” Bucky frowned. “I got crushed.”  
“Yes, that one,” Steve said. “You went in there and saved a lot of people from getting hurt. And you yourself got hurt in the process and then just disappeared. It was like a martyr story; people loved you.”  
“That really convinced everyone?” Bucky asked and Steve shrugged.  
“Convinced the people that mattered,” he said. “You’re safe right now, I promise.” Bucky could feel his heart rate slow and he brought his hands up to rub his eyes and swallowed, nodding.  
“Okay,” he said.  
“Why do you ask?” Steve asked. “You never even noticed when it was happening.” Bucky shrugged.  
“I was… Preoccupied,” he said, and then, “There was this kid on the street the other day.”  
“On your thirteen-hour walk?” Steve asked and he sounded like he was trying to make a joke, but Bucky just nodded solemnly.  
“Yes. He recognized me,” Bucky said and Steve frowned at him, a worried expression on his face.  
“Was that a bad thing?” He asked and Bucky made a face and shrugged.  
“No, no. I mean, I guess it was a good thing. He was a big fan of you, that kid, so I guess he knew my name, and then he recognized me after realizing I didn’t have arm and wanted me to sign a napkin for him.” Bucky smiled a little because it was cute and it was flattering and because he was still relieved that he wasn’t hated country-wide or facing charges for the things the Winter Soldier had done. “And I guess it just got me wondering. I never got fanmail, that was your area.” Steve nodded quietly and then Bucky, who was staring off to the side, began thinking aloud because Steve was letting him talk and he was thinking about the experience differently now and “I dunno if I… I want kids… Recognizing me,” he said. “I mean, not that it wasn’t nice or cute, ‘cause it was, and it was flattering, but I, uh, I’m not, uh, the kind of person I’d want even my own kid looking up to, not to mention thousands of other kids around America.” He smiled a little, as he thought, thinking about Steve. “Cause they have those, you know, like action figures of you, and movies and posters and stuff. And that’s great, cause who doesn’t want their kid trying to be like Captain America, right? But they can’t, they can’t… Be like me. If anything, I’m the example of what not to be.”  
Steve took a while to answer, thinking to himself.  
“I know what you mean,” he said. “But I disagree.”  
“How?” Bucky said, although he had expected Steve to try and say something like this. Steve had too much loyalty to him, he was too kind, too forgiving.   
“The guy who has the courage to do the right thing,” Steve said. “Who goes into disaster areas and pulls out hurt people. The guy who keeps going, even when he thinks he has nothing. The guy who stops bullies from beating up the little guy, even if that little guy really has it coming.” Steve grinned and Bucky mustered a small smile back. “That’s you. That’s who I’d want my kids looking up to.”  
“Thanks,” Bucky replied quietly after a while and Steve nodded. And it was still hard, believing it, because he didn’t think he was any sort of inspiration like Steve was. He had difficulty seeing the strength that Steve swore he saw, but if he’d believe that Steve didn’t open his journal, then he could believe that Steve wouldn’t lie about what he saw in Bucky and it made Bucky feel a little better. Even if he still didn’t quite want kids clamoring for his autograph.


	104. Ballerina

Natasha liked to read. She liked knowing things and learning things and keeping information on hand. She thought about this as she packed up book after book from her shelves in her old apartment, setting them into boxes gently, piling them on top of one another. She and James had picked out spots to set up the bookcases up at his place. By the TV and in the hall and near the kitchen.  
She packed up pictures and little ballerina figurines she’d been collecting. She packed up clothes and boxes of old letters and the weapons she kept on hand just in case.  
She heard James let himself in, because he wasn’t quiet and she felt him join her, stacking boxes behind her silently.  
“When do we leave?” He asked after a while, after their quiet had become comfortable.  
“What, for Russia?” She asked.  
“Yeah,” he replied.  
“Two days,” she said. “We’ll get some back-up, I know Fury’s getting ahold of the other Avengers, but I’m not sure who he’ll send with us. And we’ll put some of the finishing touches on this sinking ship of Hydra’s over there.” She looked over her shoulder at him, staring down at boxes, his arms at his sides. “We’ll be back in a couple days. It’ll be like a mini-vacation, just with more guns.”  
“I do want this,” James said, as though he were reminding himself as much as he was telling her. “I asked for this.” He looked over at her then. “Are you scared?” Natasha looked down and thought and realized she wasn’t sure. But when she looked back up at him, she shook her head.  
“I think maybe I would have been,” she said. “But not now. Not anymore.” James nodded and looked back over to her boxes, reaching up to push his hair out of his face and taking in a deep breath and he looked like he was going to say something, but he closed his mouth and remained silent. They continued packing in comfortable quiet until Natasha turned and saw James holding one of her ballerina figurines, turning it in his plastic-capped left hand and she watched him study it, try it turn it one more time, but of course, his fingers were slow and ungraceful and they both sucked in a breath loudly to watch it fall from his hand. Before Natasha could react, James was swooping down, with his right, of course, and he grabbed it out of the air just before it shattered on the ground and she heard him let go of his breath, relieved.  
He stood back up hastily and shoved the figurine at her as though he didn’t trust himself with it anymore, apologizing profusely, but Natasha just smiled at him and looked down at the tiny ballerina she’d taken back from him and shrugged.  
“Hush, James, don’t worry about it,” she said to him and set it down in the box at their feet. “No harm done, it’s not your fault.”  
“If I had my other arm,” James was saying and he was scowling at his left hand, it’s fingers jerky and clumsy.  
“We can blame Tony,” Natasha said and smiled at him until he smiled a little back.  
“Why ballerinas?” He asked as she turned back to unshelving. “I never pegged you as a collector.” Natasha shrugged.  
“I’m not,” she said. “You’re right, collecting, it’s too messy. Too much stuff, too many… Emotions. Hard to disappear when you have to pack up porcelain figurines in bubble wrap first.” She laughed a little to herself. “But I do it anyway. At least, for these. I’ve had this set for a long time.” Because she wanted to show him now, Natasha turned back and knelt down into the box and began digging through until she’d found all five figures and she unwrapped them all carefully and set them on the shelf before James. They were all a little different, with pretty painted faces and pink tutus in different positions. One was turning a pirouette on her toes. Another was holding one leg up above her head. A third sat on the ground in a graceful split. They were all a little faded and chipped. One had black marks across her torso, despite what looked like attempts to scrub it off. A few were missing hands. Natasha pointed at the black marked one. “This one was actually in my bag when I was being shot at one time. It was missed by a second.” She smiled up at him and he was looking at them all, studying them, enthralled, presumably with the way she loved them. “I’ve been carrying these around ever since I had to stop performing.” James looked at her.  
“You were a ballerina?” He asked and she nodded.  
“It was technically undercover work, while I waited for assignments. It was my life on the surface of everything,” she said.  
“You loved it,” he observed and she nodded again.  
“You can tell?” She asked. “Yeah, I loved dancing. The music, the gracefulness. And it was almost peaceful for once, on the stage. I haven’t known much peacefulness. Not like dancing, at least.”  
“How long did you do it?” He asked.  
“Oh,” Natasha thought. “A couple years.”  
“Do you want to go back?” He said and, well, did she? Natasha realized she hadn’t thought about it. She missed it, surely, but going back… She didn’t want her life from back then. She wanted now, with James, even if it had to be without dancing.  
“I’d love to dance again,” Natasha admitted, picking up one of the figures and beginning to pack it again slowly. “But I wouldn’t want to go back in time, if that’s what you mean. I like being here. I like being with you.”  
They finished packing soon after that, Natasha’s apartment left bare and clean and together, they carried the boxes one door over into James’ place. Natasha knew James had some trouble holding them because his left arm was so weak and fragile, but she knew he wouldn’t want her to say anything and so she only kept an eye on him from behind to make sure he wasn’t hurting himself. They set up piles of boxes against the walls and then James turned to her.  
“I used to dance, too,” he said. “Not… Not like you, and I was never professional like you, but I liked the music. Swing music and big bands and…” He looked like he was remembering, but he didn’t look pained or like the thinking was jarring his programming anymore, which was great and Natasha felt relieved for him. She listened to him reminisce about girls he’d take dancing and how Steve hated it, but he’d never had more fun and how it all sort of came to an end after the war and how he’d like to do it again, too. And she wanted to take his hands then, lead him until they were waltzing, even though there was no music. “It’s weird to remember,” James was finishing speaking, she could hear it in his voice. “I’m not used to that.” She stepped closer to him then, as he fell silent, and took up his hands gently and he smiled that smile at her, the one she recognized because she knew it only really truly came when he felt delighted. He smiled like that at her if she kissed him, too, and she grinned back flirtingly.  
“There’s no music,” he said.  
“So hum something,” she replied.  
“I haven’t… I haven’t danced in seventy years,” he added.  
“Give or take some,” she said with a laugh. “We’ll start slow.” And they did, with her leading until he felt more comfortable, and they did turns and gentle swirls and James began humming some tune she’d never heard before, but it was slow and sweet and part of her wanted to put her head on his shoulder and just close her eyes and let them go in circles, but an overwhelming part of her couldn’t tear her eyes away from his because in that moment, she was just so desperately glad that they were together.


	105. Journal

They took a plane to Russia, just the three of them, because Fury had decided that they made a good team, and that two Avengers plus the Winter Soldier should be able to get a job done, no matter how much Bucky had his screaming doubt inside.  
He was restless and fidgety. He fussed over Steve more than usual because he was nervous until Steve jumped down his throat about being fine, I’m fine Buck, geez, my wounds were okay days ago, alright, yeesh!! And Natalia gave him that look and pointed to his seat next to her until he sheepishly sat down and buckled himself back in and she took his right hand and rubbed it gently in order to be soothing, but it didn’t help much.  
He just couldn’t help being scared. He was just so afraid because he was going back in and he was still so broken, so unpredictable, and he didn’t know when he’d just break down. He put his left hand into his jacket pocket and although he couldn’t necessarily feel his book, he could tell when his fingers didn’t meet that it was still there, he was holding it, even if he couldn’t see or feel. He rubbed the cover and pulled his hand back out of his pocket and sat there, staring out of the window nervously.  
And that was the thing. He didn’t know when he’d just break down. Or when something would go wrong and he would be grabbed.  
I’m not going back, I’m never going back, I’ll die first.  
And Bucky felt so conflicted, because on the one hand, he would definitely die before becoming the Winter Soldier again. He couldn’t live with that, he couldn’t do it. But on the other hand, he had the nicest picture in his head of sitting at a fancy dinner table with Natalia in candlelight and music in the background and he’d promised her, alright, he’d promised that he’d live for her and he wanted to, but…  
But the reality was so much darker, so much more complicated. If it came down to it, as much as he wanted to live, it might not be an option. The Winter Soldier was too dangerous to live, too damaged to truly survive, and too broken to deserve it.  
No, no, no. He deserved it. It was Hydra, it was Hydra’s fault, all their fault, he was a victim, a weapon and he deserved life. He did and he had to keep telling himself that. But that didn’t make the rest of his thoughts untrue.  
He couldn’t live as the Winter Soldier and the Winter Soldier couldn’t live regardless.  
Oh, but Natalia… Her eyes when he’d promised, like she truly trusted him and he wanted to be there for her.  
“Ow, James, ouch!” Natalia. Bucky looked over and saw that he was gripping her hand, hurting her, and he let go in an instant, stunned and ashamed and apologetic.  
“Nat, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” Bucky said and Steve looked up, stirring from where he’d fallen asleep across from them. “I didn’t mean to.” Natalia rubbed her hand and Bucky felt awful. He didn’t know how to fix it.  
“It’s okay,” she said.  
“You don’t have to say okay if it’s not okay,” Bucky said and Natalia looked at him and even though she was still rubbing her hand, she cracked a bit of a smile and rolled her eyes.  
“It’s okay, James,” she said. “Don’t flatter yourself, you don’t have super strength. You just pinched me.”  
“What happened,” Steve mumbled.  
“Nothing, close your eyes,” Natalia instructed Steve and he mumbled something again and put his head back against his reclined seat and fell back asleep. “You old people,” Natalia laughed a little to herself quietly and Bucky smiled. “Are you okay, James?” She asked suddenly, looking up at him and he frowned.  
“What do you mean, I’m fine,” he said.  
“What were you thinking about?” she asked and Bucky took a breath.  
“Nothing,” he replied.  
“Are you sure?” She asked. “You’d feel better if you talked about it,” she added and Bucky knew she was right, so he gave in.  
“I was just thinking about, uh… About how I’m going to try to live for you. Live through this, I mean,” he said and Natalia looked down and nodded slowly. Bucky sort of wanted to keep talking, he wanted to tell her how much the concept scared him for so many reasons and how he still felt as though maybe, he made a mistake in promising, but he didn’t want to scare her and all he really wanted to do was be listened to, but he knew she would only try to talk him out of thinking like that and he couldn’t hear that today. He was too frazzled. He just wanted to be listened to about this.  
“I’ll be there for you,” Natalia said. “I’ll protect you.”  
“Okay,” Bucky said quietly. Then, after a minute, he added, “I want you to know that I… I don’t want to die.”  
“I know,” Natalia said and she leaned her head against his shoulder and linked her arm through his. “I know, James.”  
The plane ride was long and eventually, even Natalia fell asleep, but Bucky couldn’t relax. He took out his book and wrote, then tore out the Russian notes from the back and tucked them into Steve’s carry-on, and then he looked at his book and made a decision and he tucked that into Steve’s carry-on, too. He kicked the bag back under Steve’s seat and tried not to feel too uncomfortable that his journal wasn’t in his hands or his pockets anymore, tried to tell himself that he wasn’t the one who needed it now, not if when they landed in Russia, he could die.  
The first stop was in France, because SHIELD’s plane needed to refuel and they had an hour or two to stand and explore Paris’ airport, maybe eat. Bucky shook Natalia and Steve awake and followed them off the plane and into some over-priced airport restaurant where all they served was weird French hamburgers and Natalia showed off her French language skills and, as she bragged to Steve, got them a discount on lunch and Bucky watched them chatter together easily and all he could think was, if I have to die, then I have to die and Natalia and Steve will forgive me one day. They’ll have to.  
Bucky picked at his lunch, partially because he had little appetite and partially because it was gross, and then continued to follow Steve and Natalia throughout the airport as Natalia had to be dragged away from every unreasonably large Sudoku book and Steve joked about coming home draped in every French flag scarf he could find and they both seemed to be having a wonderful time laughing and Bucky trailed behind in the back, pulling the left sleeve of his only left sleeved jacket over his arm self-consciously every time someone looked over at them. Some people clearly noticed that one hand was shiny white plastic and finally, Bucky just crammed it into his now-journal-less pocket and scowled at the ground.  
Then back on the plane, for another several hours, then another quick pitstop in Belarus and Bucky watched Steve grab his bag and say he’d be right back, and he really was back quickly, alarmingly so, his face looking confused and worried and he didn’t stop at his seat, he grabbed Bucky’s arm and said, “Hey, would you come out with me for a second?”  
“Sure,” Bucky said and stood up, throwing a confused look to Natalia, who shrugged back at him from where she sat, enveloped in Sudoku. “Is something wrong?” Bucky asked Steve as he followed him into the long, empty hall that connected the plane’s open door to the airport’s exit and Steve pulled Bucky’s journal out of his bag and shoved it at him, looking still shocked and sincerely confused.  
“I don’t know how it got in there,” Steve started to apologize, but Bucky stopped him, handing it back.  
“I put it there,” he said quietly. “Here, take it.” Steve stared at him, stunned, and when Bucky raised his eyebrows and poked him in the chest with it, Steve finally reached up to take it back, slowly, as though he were unsure what was happening. Then, Bucky decided he ought to explain a little. He stepped back a bit and put his hands back into his pockets and shrugged. “You’ll, uh, you’ll know enough Russian to get around the bad parts,” he said. “Or you could ask Nat, or look it up somehow, you’ll figure it out. But most of it’s in English and I know my handwriting’s bad, I wrote most of this with one hand.”  
“What are you talking about,” Steve said.  
“The book,” Bucky replied. “It, uh… I’ve been keeping it since… Since before, I mean, ages ago, when I’d just gotten away and it’ll probably explain some things, cause I know I come off as, as, crazy sometimes, but it’s all in there, you’ll understand.” Steve just stared, looking still more shocked.  
“You want me to read it?” He said and Bucky nodded.  
“See, I’m thinking… If, uh, if anything happens over there, I want you to have this. It’s the best thing I have to give you.” They stood there together for a while, Steve staring down at the worn journal in his hand and Bucky trying to swallow with his mouth drying up.  
“I don’t know what to say,” Steve said. Bucky almost expected anger, some sort of lashing out because Steve didn’t want Bucky admitting that he could die, but Steve didn’t say anything and Bucky realized that maybe he knew what it was like to face death and only want the comfort of someone accepting your giving everything away. “What if you live?” Bucky shrugged.  
“Keep it anyway. I’ll start a new one, this one was getting full. Maybe I’ll get one on a computer or something, so I can’t cut myself with it,” he said and tried to smile at Steve because he was joking, but Steve was only examining the book now, looking it up and down, before setting it gently back in his bag and then, he wrapped Bucky in a hug that surprised him. Bucky let out a breath and hugged him back and when Steve pulled away and picked up his bag, he was smiling a little.  
“Thanks, Buck,” he said and Bucky smiled at him.  
“No problem,” he said quietly.


	106. Reading

They landed in Russia at night and found their hotel and Steve let Bucky and Natasha have the bigger room and sat by himself on his bed across the hall from them, feeling more than a little alone. And of course, as he watched the way Natasha pulled Bucky’s hand out of his pocket and laced their fingers together and the way she teased him and made him smile, he thought of Peggy and his heart hurt. He was just beginning to get over the way she’d had a future without him, but now it was the past and his future had to be without her too, but thinking about her sometimes late at night still took his breath away from him. And he’d talked to Sharon, he’d taken her out a few times like Natasha had begged him to do, but he still wasn’t sure if he was ready. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready.  
He did know this, however, that the loneliness only seemed unbearable when he was in the thick of it, but that now, it was his new normal and he could live with it if he had to.  
Tonight, however, he had more to dwell on than just his tragic romance with Peggy and he turned on the lamp by his bed and took Bucky’s journal out of his bag and opened it up, still cautiously, to the first page.  
And it was a mess of ink. Steve gasped at the blackness. There were smudges where Bucky’s hand had accidentally, or purposefully, smeared it across the page, and it was thick, block lettering, hastily scrawled as though he couldn’t quite see while he was writing it and there was no heading or date, just words, words all over the page, spilling over the lines and into the margins and everywhere. Steve squinted to make it out.  
It hurts to remember but I try and and  
Oh it hurts my head is is like a thousand people screaming and they’re screaming things I need to know things I need to remember but  
Steve DAMN HIM--  
Steve stopped here for a moment, at the first mention of his name, feeling jarred right out of the page and had to remind himself that this was the very beginning for Bucky. This was the fear and the confusion, that animal in the headlights look that Steve had seen in his eyes then and still saw shadows of sometimes on bad days. This was when Bucky didn’t know Steve. Steve tried to keep this in mind as he continued.  
\--why why why does he  
keep talking to me he keeps contacting me but i cant i cant talk to him  
why does he love me  
Steve felt indescribable sadness grip him, as it had the entire time he read, as Bucky’s thoughts on paper were a mess, were scrambled and panicked and heartbreaking. Just in case, because Steve was scared, he flipped to some page nearer to the back and glanced at an entry there, just to make sure.  
November fifth (Wow, Steve thought. Improvement already. There’s even a heading.)  
Steve’s looking a lot better today, but we’re going to have to buy more cereal, the way he’s eating it like it’s going out of style. Natasha tells me to stop fussing over him, but I can’t just leave him. He is my best friend, after all, and what kind of a friend would I be if I tried to kill him and then wouldn’t even help him after he’d been shot.  
That was supposed to be a joke. It’s probably not funny, Natasha made me promise the other day to stop making self-deprecating jokes, but I’m trying to make light of the situation here. I guess I promised though. I’ll scribble it out later.  
Steve felt himself relax a little because this was so much better than the beginning of the journal, where everything was chaos. The end represented such a calmer mind that Steve couldn’t help but smile a little bit in relief. Bucky was okay. He was going to be okay.  
And with that in mind, Steve put the journal back in a safe place in his bag and shut off his light and stared at the ceiling and attempted sleep.


	107. Goodbyes

Bucky didn’t sleep much that night because every time he looked at Natalia, all he could think of was that promise and it kept him up and thinking dark, late-night thoughts. He wanted to say more to Natalia about it, and more than that, he wanted to leave her with something, he wanted to do something for her like he’d done for Steve, something to say goodbye and that he loved her. Just in case.   
She was asleep next to him in the dark, sheets bundled around her face and she was so breathtakingly beautiful, her face relaxed and her hair tangled behind her and he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb and laid down next to her again, looking at her face and trying to imagine what would happen to her if he had to break his promise.  
“Natalia,” Bucky said quietly, trying to rouse her awake at least just a little and she stirred because she slept so lightly and her eyelids fluttered. She muttered his name into her pillow and smiled sleepily at him. He couldn’t muster a smile back. “I love you,” he told her and she closed her eyes again.  
“Love you, too,” she said.  
“Don’t miss me too much, ‘kay?” He said. “If anything happens. You shouldn’t feel sad.”  
“What do you mean?” She mumbled. He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it gently before putting it back.  
“Promise,” he said.  
“Promise,” she replied and Bucky rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling until he thought he absolutely couldn’t anymore because all those memories of Hydra, everything he’d never wanted, was eating him alive from the inside out and he was beginning to feel the edges of panic, the trembling, the fear.   
He was going back in.  
He’d been suppressing the torrent of memories, reaching for his dam ever since they’d landed. He saw and heard Russian everywhere in a way he hadn’t in months and it brought back things he’d never wanted to see again, feelings and thoughts that he’d begun to believe he was getting over.  
He was going back in.  
He felt nausea in a deep-seated place inside him every time he closed his eyes because in the dark, he had innocent blood on his hands, he was this inhuman thing, he was again strapped to tables and chairs and chained to walls and he had nothing nothing-until he sucked in a breath and opened his eyes and looked over and Natalia Natalia Natalia you’re fine you’re safe you’re… You’re okay… Maybe not forgiven, maybe not whole or redeemed or ever truly, deeply okay… But at the very least, safe. And even loved. He could live with that, as long as he kept his eyes open and took deep breaths.  
He was going back in.  
And he might not come back out.  
In the morning, when the sun came up, Bucky expected to feel the tired-eyed relief wash over him, like it usually did at the end of long nights, but today was different because today, he was going back, he had only hours left, and even with the sun coming through the window of their hotel room, it still felt like the depths of a Bad Night in the wake of a very, very Bad Day. Natalia awoke eventually and Bucky watched her stand and stretch and smile at him and he felt like he couldn’t smile back because he was the Winter Soldier and he didn’t smile, didn’t deserve happiness. He was even in Russia again. It was like he had taken a step back in time.  
Bucky sat in the hotel room and listened to Natalia getting ready in the bathroom, comforting sounds because her presence made him feel so much less alone, and the water was running and she was humming and Bucky pressed his head against the wall where he had slid down to sit on the floor next to her door and knew he couldn’t close his eyes again. Then, unexpectedly, the water in the bathroom shut off abruptly.  
“James?” Natalia called.  
“I’m right here,” Bucky replied through the door. There was a pause.  
“Did you say something last night?” Natalia asked finally. “I didn’t think I was dreaming, but…” Bucky pressed his mouth together and looked down at the ugly hotel rug underneath him.  
“I didn’t say anything,” he said quietly.  
“What?” She called.  
“Nothing,” he said louder. “I-I didn’t… Say anything…”  
“Oh, okay,” Natalia said and the water turned back on and then Bucky took a deep breath and called her name again and the water shut off for the second time. “Yes?” She called.  
“I love you,” he said for the second time that day and put his head back against the wall tiredly. “I’m sorry for everything.”  
“James, are you okay?” Natalia asked and she sounded so concerned and Bucky felt worse now for making her worry.  
“Fine,” he said. “I’m just saying.”  
“Okay then,” Natalia said and continued her shower and Bucky got up, pushing his hair back, seeing cryofreeze and being put out of commission like a tool, feeling fear, feeling disgust, feeling the absence of anything and everything. And he tried to think of Steve, who was so brave and had so much courage that it spilled over, who fought bullies behind tall buildings and begged to fight in a war that would kill him. Steve, who would be so much braver and so much better than him if the positions were switched. If it were Steve… Well of course, it wouldn’t be Steve, Steve was incorruptible. He wouldn’t have let them turn him into a monster in the first place. He would have gotten out of it, or else died like he was supposed to. Bucky realized that this wasn’t making him feel any better and he came to realize also that he had been pacing back and forth and stopped himself, forcing himself to sit down and he held up his hands and watched them tremble disappointedly. He wasn’t brave enough. But he was going to do it anyway.  
When Natalia got out of the shower, her hair wet and beginning to curl, she sat down next to him and kissed his cheek and tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t focus on her long enough to hear what she was saying.  
“Are you going to be okay?” He finally heard her say.  
“I can’t… I have to do this,” he replied. “That’s just… That’s all I want you to know.” Natalia was silent for a while, then she looked up at him again.  
“There’s a really nice place just off of Main Street back in DC, it’s open for dinners, it’s got a huge ballroom with chandeliers and private seating on the side,” she remarked. “Very high class.” Bucky stared at the ground.  
“I’ll have to buy a suit,” he said.  
“I already have my evening gown picked out,” she replied and he tried to smile. They sat there for a while, leaning against each other, and a thick sadness settled itself over them in layers. Natalia looked down and pulled her hair back and he glanced over just in time to catch her cover up the heartbroken expression on her face.  
He thought he would feel better after he’d said goodbye to her. He thought it would make him feel more at ease with the situation, but if anything, he only felt worse.


	108. Victory

They met Steve in the hall and Bucky recognized that maybe they’d had a similarly difficult time sleeping that night, but Steve was so good at standing up straight and smiling that anyone but his closest friend would have completely missed the heavy sadness in his eyes. Bucky wondered if he’d looked at his journal and how far he’d gotten. He knew if anything would put those dark shadows in Steve’s face, his book would and for a second, he almost regretted sharing it with him.  
They discussed discreetly over breakfast, the plan. The base was close, in a remote location and mostly kept underground. They were to sneak in and locate key persons whose deaths would be a critical hit to Hydra and make sure those deaths happened. Then, they would blow up the facility and get out of Russia.  
“We’ve done this a million times, right Buck?” Steve said. “Same problem, different year.” Not like this, Bucky thought and he was feeling so fearful that he couldn’t even pretend to joke back and his smile fell flat and his words failed him for a few tries.  
“Yeah,” he finally replied and he hated how suddenly, everyone knew how afraid he was.  
They arrived at the facility a few hours later and Bucky realized that he recognized it and had to look back and forth between Steve and Natalia to remind himself that he was okay.   
“That’s it,” Bucky said quietly. “That’s the place.” I became this thing there, I was destroyed there. Spent years frozen and experimented on and tied down. Spent years staring down the barrels of guns of nasty handlers and men who gave orders and told me I wasn’t human enough, even though they were taking my humanity themselves. And I killed and killed and killed and killed.  
“We’re gonna do it and get out,” Steve said now to Bucky as he was putting on his helmet and Bucky wondered just how much he could see that he was struggling. “We’ll be back home before too late tomorrow and you’ll have nothing to be scared of ever again.” And even that wasn’t entirely true, Bucky thought, or maybe it was simply that he didn’t know how to not be scared anymore.  
The building was squat and small, disguised as some sort of miniature office building, and Bucky, Steve and Natalia sat outside it just a block away in a van, running over the plan again, making Bucky swear to stay close and determining their actions over a blueprint layout of the building. Bucky stared out the window at the place where he lost all humanity and listened silently to Steve strategize.   
They got inside quickly, through some employee door in the back and Bucky recognized everything. He had been dragged down these halls, led away and feeling dead. It was beginning to hurt to remember now, like a sharp pain in the back of his head, so poignant that Bucky actually ran his hand through his hair to make sure there wasn’t actually something cutting into him. But he couldn’t stop the memories because he was surrounded by them; they were permeating the air and oozing out of the walls and he was the Winter Soldier now, he couldn’t escape it.  
He followed Steve and Natalia, checking around each corner to make sure no one was there, sneaking around, guns in hand, until they found the elevator and then they were going down, down to the bottom to work their way up and the Winter Soldier knew that this was the worst of it. The bottom was where he was kept, the cell where he sat and stared at the wall and thought nothing, the room where everything was stolen from his mind, the cryofreezing, the pain, everything stolen from his memories to his humanity to the very basics of human autonomy that he had once thought to be his right.   
Steve nudged the Winter Soldier as they stood in the elevator and for half a second, he wasn’t with Steve, he was with handlers, being prodded with guns and the Winter Soldier jumped forward, afraid, until Steve reached out and grabbed him again, saying, “Bucky, Bucky, it’s okay, it’s me.”  
“I-,” the Winter Soldier gasped and tried to recover, to stand up straight and relax his shoulders, but he had trouble doing even that.  
“We can turn around, Buck, if you want. No one would blame you,” Steve said and the Winter Soldier shook his head. He clenched and unclenched his right fist and swallowed, although his mouth was dry, and kept refusing.  
“No, I can do this,” he said determinedly. Steve exchanged a glance with Natalia and the Winter Soldier wanted to look at her, but her face made the pain in his head worse so he looked down at the ground and stared blankly. “I have to fight this,” he said.  
“Okay,” Steve said gently. “Okay, whatever you want.”  
The mission went smoothly at first. Targets were easily picked off between the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow and Steve set up the bombs discreetly in corners where they had designated with the blueprints earlier. But, like everything in the Winter Soldier’s life, something was bound to go wrong.  
It was because they were passing rooms he’d spent years in, places he’d died every death possible except for one and he had to look in these rooms and try not to see himself sitting there. It was because everything is a trap, always, and nothing is ever easy. It was because the Winter Soldier peered into one room on the way past and recognized a big, metal machine with straps and his own arm on the table across from it, all gleaming metal plates and a newly painted star and he stopped.  
“Steve,” the Winter Soldier hissed, readying his gun and pressing his back to the wall next to the room. “Natalia, stop.” He didn’t wait to see them turn, he was looking through the window again and mapping out the best way to pick through the guards and gauging how quickly he could rip his other arm off.  
“What is it?” Steve replied in a whisper. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”  
“No, no, wait,” Bucky replied. “That’s my arm.” Steve glanced at Natalia and Natalia shrugged.  
“Couldn’t hurt to try,” Steve replied and Bucky almost smiled.  
“You two get the guards on the sides there, see?” He said, pointing out his thoughts. “I’m going straight down the middle. Then cover me, it’s gonna hurt to take this other thing off.”  
“We got your back, Buck,” Steve replied and Bucky burst into the room and the guards leapt up, startled and shouting, but they didn’t get far because Bucky had a gun and they hit the ground before they could yell for help. More guards ran at him and Bucky didn’t let them get close. Steve and Natalia were behind him, they were fighting off men and there were only so many there and finally, they were alone and Bucky threw his gun down and grinned because this already felt like victory. He crossed the room to his arm and even though Steve was talking to him and telling him to wait, hold on for a sec, Buck, I’ll help you, Bucky pulled his shirt off his arm and over his left shoulder and braced himself as he flipped the switch. The pain, as it had been every time, was electric and Bucky thought he might have bit his tongue, but he could already feel it coming together again inside his mouth and he was concentrating on focusing his eyesight and taking a breath in and a breath out. Steve had him, grabbed him because he was falling, with one arm hooked under his right and the other arm wrapped around Bucky’s chest, pushing him upright again.  
“James,” Natalia was saying and he reached out and took her hand and let them both haul him up on his feet. “Be careful, please!” Bucky didn’t respond, he just reached out and grabbed his arm from off the table. Finally, Bucky thought. Finally.  
The metal was familiar in his hand, cold and smooth and something he’d missed feeling against his body. Of course, the star would have to go. Again. But that hardly mattered because this was such a victory. They couldn’t control him anymore, they couldn’t take him and steal parts of him and claim him like a thing anymore. He wasn’t theirs. He grinned now, he could actually smile thinking about this, and attached his arm back to himself. There was a small click and suddenly, Bucky felt so much better about everything. There was no pain here like with the other prosthetics. Everything fit in right and he could feel his reach extend back into his left. He rolled his shoulders, feeling suddenly more natural. He looked down at his hands, smiling, relishing the way there was no delay as he flexed his fingers back and forth, delighting in the familiarity of the metal. He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed it.   
And he didn’t feel fragile, not like he had earlier, when even arm-wrestling Steve had wrought such pain through him because that arm was weak. This was his arm, a piece of him. And it was strong. He could do things with his arm back. He could lift those boxes from Natalia’s apartment without straining. He could rip the wheels out of cars. He could take down a Hydra facility and walk out alive.   
It was significant, too, to Bucky that it was him, Bucky Barnes, James Buchanan Barnes, putting on that metal arm. He felt less empty, less dark, less afraid. He felt like himself and he was regaining control from Hydra. James Barnes was taking back what was his.  
“Look at this,” Bucky said, smiling, and stretching out his arm. “Natalia, Steve, look at this.” He rolled his arm back and forth, examining the shifting plates, listening to the clicks and small scraping and electrical sounds his arm made. He’d nearly forgotten that it did that. He grinned up at Steve and Natalia like he’d just gotten the best Christmas present ever, and he nearly laughed. “I can’t believe how much I’ve missed this. Just… This. The things I can do. Oh, man. Ha!” Bucky couldn’t tear his eyes away from his own arm now and he felt silly and so glad they’d found this. “It’s, I mean, it’s… Look at the way it shines.” Natalia took his hand now, turning it back and forth and looking at the fine joints at his fingers where gleaming metal plate met metal plate and turned. She smiled up at him and he smiled back.  
“I’m so happy for you,” she said.  
“That’s really awesome, Bucky,” Steve said. “We do have to keep moving, though. Let’s celebrate once Hydra’s gone, kay?” Bucky rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop smiling as he pulled his shirt back on over his arm. No cord, no weak plastic. It was great.  
“You’re just jealous,” Bucky teased quietly. “Cause you know I’m gonna beat you at arm-wrestling now.” Then, something happened, something horribly wrong, and Bucky felt his entire body seize up like he was being electrocuted again, but worse and he realized with a sinking feeling as his knees gave out and he fell, that it was his arm. They’d done something, they’d rigged it and set him up and now crippling pain was coursing through him. He didn’t have time to think or speak before his head hit the concrete and he blacked out.


	109. End

When Bucky opened his eyes and came into consciousness he realized that now would be the ideal time for him to die.   
The room was dark, and cold, and he was upright. His arms were up above his head, locked into some machine and his legs below him were just as locked and no matter how much he strained, he couldn’t move, tied into some sort of neutralizing starfish position. He didn’t know what to do. This was new, he’d never been detained like this before and he sucked in a breath, shuddering, and tried to shake the headache out from behind his eyes.  
“STEVE!” Bucky screamed, because he had nothing else to lose. “STEEEVE! NATALIA!” Bucky pulled on his restraints, roaring as loud as he could and feeling sick. This was it. This was it. He began to breath harder, began to feel that nauseous feeling and he thought he might throw up. “ANYONE! HELP! PLEASE! Please!”  
He had been stupid, stupid! He had walked into a trap, hooked himself into something that Hydra had tampered with, and it was all his fault.  
It was now or never. He wanted to die as Bucky Barnes instead of live as the Winter Soldier.  
In the end, he couldn’t keep his promise. In the end, Hydra had made a liar out of him, and a monster and a killer and a traitor.  
He’d been so happy. He thought he’d won a victory, he thought he’d finally taken something back, but instead, they had him now, all of him, everything, to do with what they wished, to destroy as they saw fit. He had to start thinking about it now, how he would die, and realized in a panic that he didn’t know. He was too restrained, there didn’t appear to be any weapons around, from what he could see, and for now, he just seemed stuck. His arm hurt, being pulled above his head like that, and he began to feel dizzy. He was hyperventilating, breathing hard and trying to close his eyes and think clearly.  
“You know, this is really amazing,” someone said in Russian from behind Bucky and Bucky put his head up and reminded himself, breathe breathe breathe.  
Steve is here. And Natalia. They could save him. He wouldn’t live as the Winter Soldier again, he wouldn’t be Hydra’s possession again. Steve is here. Steve is here.  
“Amazing because, after a while, we didn’t even really have to go after you anymore, huh, Winter Soldier?” The voice said. It sounded like a man, not someone he recognized, but it was Hydra. They were all the same. “After a while, we just sat back and you came to us.” Bucky wished he could think of something to say, something biting, something fighting. Where was that fire when he needed it?  
“Steve is here,” Bucky heard himself say and he didn’t know if it was to the man behind him or to himself, but he almost whispered it, muttering, still trying to just breathe.  
“Yes, your Captain is here. And the Black Widow. Funny how you two found each other again. I’ll bet it’s traumatic to remember her, isn’t it?” Bucky didn’t respond. “But anyway, you don’t have to worry about them, or their bombs.” The man was moving now and he was in front of Bucky, some scientist in a coat, alone. “We’re keeping them pretty busy. We plan on putting some more holes in Rogers, I believe.” The man shrugged. “But it’s not my area. I’m just the programmer, of course.”  
“Let me out of here,” Bucky growled, trying to cover the way his voice shook because he was so afraid. Programming, erasing. Taking and taking, taking everything. Bucky remembered the shock, the cutting pain, the black. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to do.  
What do I do what do I do  
steve is here steve is here you’re okay breathe buck breathe  
No more shaking. You’re going to be okay.   
“It was also interesting to watch you outside of our influence,” the man continued, folding his hands and looking up at Bucky’s face, as though they had all the time in the world. “The way you interacted with others, or rather, didn’t interact. You rather kept to yourself, you know that?” The man looked back down at the ground. “We deemed you dysfunctional, as I’m sure Rogers and Romanova had before us. You need this sort of thing, this programming and handling. It’s for the best.” Bucky stared at him.  
“What do you mean, I’m not… I’m not. Not dysfunctional,” he said.  
“On the contrary, Winter Soldier, you were barely coping,” the man replied. “You said it yourself, in your book.” Bucky stopped, stunned. They read his book. They had been watching him that entire time.  
Breathe, breathe, breathe.   
You won’t be the Winter Soldier again. That’s a promise I make myself, I’m not going there, not again.  
Breathe. Breathe.  
“I was getting better,” Bucky replied, gritting his teeth until he could hear the scraping in his head. “I was getting better.” The man scoffed, rocking back on his heels.  
“You are delusional, Winter Soldier,” he said softly. “There is no getting better for you. Especially after what we observed, with the meltdowns and the confusion. I’m afraid this is just… What you are. This is the only life you are suited for anymore.”  
“That’s not true,” Bucky said.  
“Let’s be honest with ourselves here, Winter Soldier,” the man said, interrupting him. “I’ve read your file. We both know who you are. You don’t deserve anything more.”  
“NO!” Bucky roared and there was the fire. He was breathing it. “That’s not TRUE! You DID THIS TO ME!” The man raised his eyebrows. “You made me this!! You took away EVERYTHING and it WASN’T MY FAULT!”  
“Steve Rogers tell you that?” He said. Bucky glared. It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault!  
I was a victim.  
That’s when Bucky really felt like he knew, restrained there in metal that swallowed up his hands and feet in the dark, where finally the guilt wasn’t his and the murders weren’t his and the brokenness wasn’t his. He was a person, he was a human being, he deserved things. He was abused.   
It wasn’t his fault.  
It finally, finally, wasn’t his fault.  
The only shame was that now that Bucky knew this, truly and intimately, he was going to lose it all again.  
“You are a monster, Winter Soldier,” the man said finally. “And you are even afraid of yourself. But,” the man shrugged and began to back up, finding some tall control panel in the dark that Bucky hadn’t seen. “You are a monster we can use.”  
“Go to hell,” Bucky hissed through his panic and his anger. Programming. Wiping.   
Steve is here! Steve is coming! And Natalia, they wouldn’t let him become this again, they wouldn’t, they would save him.  
Was there no way he could get away, get out of this? Was there no way he could even just die?!  
“Oh, my friend,” the man said as he began to push buttons. “It’s not me who will be in hell today.”  
Bucky screamed. Metal moved around him. No one was coming and he couldn’t die and he was back, he was with them, under them, and this was it. It wasn’t his fault and he deserved life and happiness, but that didn’t stop them, never stopped them. This was the end of everything.  
There was an electrical shock.  
And a burning.   
A horrible burning.  
Then, so much black that it swallowed up James Buchanan Barnes until he was  
forever  
and completely  
and entirely  
gone.


	110. Panic

It was like they knew when Bucky was going to collapse, like they planned it, and by the time Steve heard his body hit the ground behind him, Hydra guards were already crawling out of the walls, materializing out of the shadows, and dragging him away.  
“No!” Natasha screamed and threw herself towards Bucky, reaching to her wrist to use her Widow’s Bite. Steve leapt into action, throwing his shield up in front of him. They were losing him again.  
All my fault, Steve thought. If something happens to him, it will be all my fault.  
The room and hall became flooded with guards and suddenly, Steve couldn’t see Bucky anymore. Someone was grabbing him from behind, arms around his neck, and someone kneed him in the nose. He reeled back, his face all pain and he felt hot blood gush down his chin.  
“Natasha, where’s Bucky?!” He screamed as he stopped the next hit with his shield. He pulled his elbow back and got the guy off his shoulders, but there were more, and bullets, and there was so much going on that Steve couldn’t see anything.  
“He’s gone!!” Natasha cried from somewhere behind him. “I can’t find him, I can’t see him, Steve!! They have him!”  
Steve remembered the journal back in his hotel room. He remembered that conversation with Bucky at the airport. If anything happens over there, Bucky had said.   
If anything happens over there.  
Steve fought harder, fought faster, in a panic. The things they did to Bucky, it was inhuman and evil. They were hurting him. Steve had to be there, had to stop them. He had to save Bucky.


	111. You Deserve to Know

When the clamps on his wrists and ankles were loosened, the Winter Soldier fell forward onto the concrete and lay there. He pressed his forehead to the ground and brought his arms up over his head, curling his knees underneath him slowly like the world was caving in. He was silent.  
He was beginning to register things through the white noise in his mind. The concrete; cold. His head; pounding. The blackness; overwhelming.  
And there was a face, there in the black, a hole, a cut out portion of him that he was all-too aware of, like a missing limb.  
And still, the Winter Soldier said nothing and curled himself tighter. There was a rhythm in his head, words. Breathe? Was he supposed to remind himself to breathe?  
A few of the remaining handlers stepped forward and two of them reached down and grabbed him by the arms, hauling him up, and he let them, his head hanging forward.  
“Winter Soldier,” someone said, but the Winter Soldier didn’t care to look up and see what it was. That thing that was missing in him, that cut out portion, distracted him so badly. He felt… Well, he wasn’t quite sure. But he didn’t like it. “Winter Soldier, look at me when I’m talking to you.” Slowly, the Winter Soldier raised his head and stared forward at the man speaking, someone in a lab coat. “Tell me, who do you answer to?” The Winter Soldier honestly wasn’t sure, there was no name in his head, no face, no memories, no nothing. He supposed he answered to whoever gave him orders or whoever hit him the hardest.  
“You?” The Winter Soldier asked quietly and the man nodded.  
“Me,” the man replied. “And I’m here to give you one more mission. In fact, they’re almost here, you can just wait.” The Winter Soldier’s handlers dragged him backward into some metal folding chair in the corner and sat him there. “And if you’ll excuse me, I have a get-away car to join.”  
“What am I supposed to do?” The Winter Soldier asked from his chair, mumbling, confused, nearly whispering.  
“Kill the intruders,” the man said as though it were obvious as he shrugged on a coat. “We’ll be back for you, stay here when you’re done.” The Winter Soldier sat back in his chair and watched as the man went to say more, give him more orders, presumably, but a bullet whizzed behind his head and came out in-between his eyes and his words drained away. The man collapsed and blood began to pool and the Winter Soldier jumped to his feet. His handlers panicked and the Winter Soldier watched a red, white and blue shield ricochet off of walls around him until all the rest of the men in the room were on the ground and then, the intruders entered the room.  
It hurt to look at them, the blonde man and the beautiful woman in black. He felt a sting in his head, a pressing, like… Why, it was like a dam, like something was pushing against a wall inside him. Pushing against the blackness inside him. He stared at them as the man caught the shield and clicked it into his back. Then, the man approached him, he was… Smiling? And the Winter Soldier stared. The man was talking, he was saying something, he was saying…  
“... something worried about you something something Bucky something Okay? I’m so sorry-” the Winter Soldier felt the pushing, the pressure in his head like pain and once the man got close enough, he reached up with his metal hand and grabbed him by the throat, stopping him. The man choked and for a second, tried to pull away, but the Winter Soldier pulled him closer to his face, yanked him, and tightened his grip until the man was scrambling at his hand and the Winter Soldier studied his face. It hurt, it hurt, he was… Familiar. Something reaching out of the blackness.  
Bucky. Who was Bucky?  
The Winter Soldier let go for just a second, let the man back away, choking and coughing and holding his throat.   
“Who are you?” The Winter Soldier heard himself say. The man looked up at him and his face was a mix of emotions the Winter Soldier didn’t understand.   
The pushing was there, on the dam, the pressure, the pain. The Winter Soldier didn’t want anything getting through the dam, he was… He was scared. It hurt too much, he didn’t understand. Everything was confusing, nothing made sense.  
Where was he?  
Who were these people?   
Who was… Who was he?   
Why did he have to kill them?  
But that’s what the Winter Soldier knew. He had one thing, a mission, an order, to kill the intruders. And he recognized them, they made everything in him hurt and maybe… They would be better dead. Maybe everything would stop hurting, everything would be better if they were gone.  
So despite the fact that the man was trying to answer his question, his voice choked and broken, the Winter Soldier didn’t stop to listen. He walked forward and grabbed the man by his collar and yanked him close again and reared back with his metal hand and landed a powerful punch right into his nose. The man reached up to his face and yelled out, trying to get away, but the Winter Soldier’s grip was tight.  
That’s when the woman came at him, barreling, grabbing him by the shoulders and her momentum threw him off balance until he was tripping backwards and she was saying something, but he wasn’t listening. It hurt even more to look at her, it hurt so badly that he started to see spots in his vision and he let her shove him backwards into the wall.   
“Not again, not again,” the man was crying, coughing, and there was rage in his face. That was an emotion the Winter Soldier could recognize. “Not again!”  
She was pressing him into the wall with one hand and messing with something on the golden gauntlets around her wrist until he saw electricity and he ducked away just in time.  
“Don’t hurt him,” the man shouted. “Don’t hurt him!!” The Winter Soldier grabbed the woman while she was looking over to the man, grabbed her face and her shoulder and he was about to snap her neck, he was ready, until something hit him. A surge of pain in his head so sharp and sudden that he gasped and drew back and something rose up inside his mind.  
Promise.  
He promised.  
The Winter Soldier stared at this woman and reached up and grabbed his own head, his eyes wide, gasping because the pain was so much and he could barely see through it.  
“No,” the Winter Soldier groaned. “Ah, aaaaah, it-it-” the Winter Soldier felt his knees become weak, he felt sick, he thought he would collapse, but he pressed his back against the wall, held up that dam, and sucked in a breath. “I’m supposed to… I have to… Kill you,” he said.  
“Bucky,” the man said and the Winter Soldier felt another attack of pain and he screamed and began to slide down to the floor because everything was pain, white-hot, but he sucked in another shuddering breath and forced himself to stay standing, taking his hands away from his head and blinking and and  
No no I don’t understand Bucky who is Bucky  
“You!” The man cried. “You’re Bucky!”  
No no I’m not I’m NOT  
The dam began to crack and Bucky-no. No, no, the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier screamed and fell now, forward, his knees smacking the concrete painfully.  
It HURTS  
“I know, I know,” the man said and he dropped to his knees, his hand still over his throat, on level with the Winter Soldier now. He reached out with his other hand. “I’m Steve, you know me.” The Winter Soldier reached up shakily and grabbed his head again, beginning to breathe heavily.  
There’s a, a dam, a wall  
“It’s gotta come down, Buck.”  
IT HURTS  
“I know!!” The man stopped and coughed and tried to swallow and blood was running down his face, too much blood, he spat some out of his mouth and rubbed the blood off with his hand. “I know, but you have to remember!”  
What what HAPPENED TO ME  
“Remember it!” The man yelled and Bucky pressed himself into the wall and squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his head and shook violently.  
I deserve to know, Bucky thought he said.  
The dam. Bucky looked at it and felt fear grab him, squeeze his heart and steal the breath away from his lungs, but that dam. Leaking and pushing and the pressure and the pain.  
It’s gotta come down, Buck.  
Bucky kicked the dam. He felt everything coming down now, an explosion of everything, pain and thoughts, pictures and feelings. He crushed that dam, he dug his fingers in the cracks and pulled it apart in pieces. He scraped at the wall and kicked it in and screamed.  
His right hand’s fingernails were digging into his scalp and he felt wetness. He was wrapped in the tightest ball he could make himself, until it physically hurt him, and he was screaming so hard that his throat felt like sandpaper, but he barely noticed the sting over his exploding head.  
The dam was down, coming down and it was everything all at once. Again.  
He was slapping the concrete with his palms until his right was bright red and sparks rose from his left. He thought he was screaming words, but he didn’t know what he was saying.  
The dam crumbled and crushed him.  
“Steve, I don’t… I-I,” Bucky said between sucking in breaths, throwing his head back against the wall, his face red and wet, even though he hadn’t realized he’d been crying. He didn’t know what he wanted to say as the floods from the dam overwhelmed him. “Steve.”  
“I’m here, Bucky,” Steve replied hoarsely.   
“Nat, I almost broke my promise,” Bucky said and wiped at his face and his head was still pounding and he was seeing bright red spots. “I promised you.”  
“I know, James,” Natalia said and he looked over to see her sitting on the ground next to him. It still hurt to look at her, not in a pushing way, but like he was twisting the knife in something cut off, something cut out.  
“There’s bombs,” Steve said. “There’s still bombs set all over here, we have to get out.” Bucky felt his stomach turn, bile rise in his throat, because he was in so much pain and he was so disgusted with how Hydra had mutilated his mind, and he clutched his stomach with both arms and leaned over and puked.  
“Help me,” Bucky said weakly, trying to wipe his mouth, trying to scoot away, but he was shaking too hard. “Help, I-I… I’m, I was getting better.”  
“You are getting better, James,” Natalia said and she was taking him, he felt her lift him up, his arm over her shoulder.   
“It wasn’t my fault,” Bucky gasped as he slumped against Natalia and there were still things coming from that dam, he could barely see. “It was… Them, it was all them, they did this to me.” Natalia was dragging him out, Steve had his other side, they were going fast but Bucky was a million places at once.  
“Shh, of course,” Natalia said and he felt her through the pain inside him kiss the top of his head as they dragged him down the hall. “Shh.”  
“No, no,” Bucky insisted, shaking his head. “No, it was them. It was never me, it was never my fault. It was never my fault. I… I deserve things.”  
“You’re a victim, Buck,” Steve said and Bucky could barely understand him now because of his swollen throat and broken nose. “You were hurt by them, it was all them.”  
“All them,” Bucky repeated him and glanced back over quickly. “You, I hurt you, I-”  
“It was all them, Bucky,” Steve cut him off. “They tried to control you.”  
“Not my… My fault,” Bucky said. “I-I deserve… deserve…”  
“Not your fault,” Steve repeated and Bucky began to see black in the corners of his vision and he tried to concentrate, but he was fading, and he gripped Steve and Natalia’s shoulders and dragged his feet and he was going, but it didn’t matter, it was going to be okay, because he was alive and he wasn’t a monster and it wasn’t his fault.  
Finally.  
It wasn’t his fault.


	112. Epilogue: Jump

Bucky had decided earlier in the evening that he liked suits. Steve had helped him pick this one out, mostly through pointing because Bucky wouldn’t let him hurt his throat any further. But it was a nice suit, with shiny lapels and he wore a bowtie and got another hair cut, this time from the barber down the street, and with enough money to pay him. And by the end, Bucky was just glad that he could look in the mirror and smile at himself.  
Natalia was, of course, radiant. She took Bucky’s breath away as they sat across from each other at that expensive restaurant on Main Street in a gown without a back and Bucky thought that he could look at her all day. But she kept peeking out at him over the menu and making eyes and he could barely suppress his laughter and the way he wanted to reach across the table and kiss her right now.  
“Nat, this is a nice place, we’re going to embarrass ourselves,” he scolded and Natalia grinned at him.  
“Good,” she said.   
Waiters continually brought more wine to the table, but the actual dinner portions were so small that Natalia joked that they’d have to run by fast food on the way home or she’d starve to death. But of course, neither of them really cared. The dinner didn’t actually matter.  
“I was this close,” Bucky said finally when their flirting and teasing had stopped and the mood became darker for a moment. “This close to not being here right now.” Natalia looked at him and pursed her lips.  
“Don’t talk like that,” she said. “You kept your promise.” Bucky frowned and nodded.  
“I’m glad I could,” he said. “I am.”  
“Me too, James,” Natalia replied quietly. And then, “You’ve done so good. I hope you know that. You’re so strong.”  
“I’ve got a long way to go,” Bucky said, shrugging almost uncomfortably now, leaning back into his chair and staring off to the side because he still had some trouble accepting compliments sometimes. “Everything’s not all better.” He glanced back over at her now, the way she leaned over her plate with her elbows on the table, cupping her face in her hands and looking at him.  
“But you’re getting there,” she said and he nodded thoughtfully.  
“Thank you,” he said, looking her in the eyes and she smiled at him.  
“Anything for you, James Barnes,” she said quietly.  
Bucky remembered running. He remembered being alone, being scared, and wanting nothing more than to run.   
Run to the end of the street  
to the edge of the water  
to the end of the world  
run til you reach the edge of something and just jump  
And he realized that he didn’t feel like that anymore. He didn’t feel that pull, that fear, that flight instinct. He was safe, he was happy. He would never have to be afraid again.  
And the jumping, that was gone, too, but maybe not for the same reason. Bucky felt like he’d already jumped. He was in the air now, waiting to see exactly what was on the ground out there and if he’d land on his feet.  
Bucky realized it took fear to run, and so much pain, but in the end, it took faith to jump. And he did it, leapt into it, and he wasn’t alone, he’d never have to be alone, but now he could take that leap of faith, he could put on a suit and tie and smile and tell himself that he was getting better. Always getting better.   
Bucky raised his glass to Natalia and she raised hers in return and Bucky jumped.  
THE END

Hello readers!! I'm the writer, my name is Kaitlyn, and I posted Run to AO3 in one fell swoop after having posted it chapter by chapter on Wattpad and FF.net earlier. :) I hope you enjoyed it!!  
I'll be posting the completed sequel after this, by the name of Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story) and then the book after that. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts about the book and the story so far and I hope to see you at the end of the sequel! <3 -BlitheBells, Kaitlyn


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